11:17 AM BST Three-time World Player of the Year Dan Carter announced he was leaving Japanese Top League side Kobelco Steelers in an Instagram post on Friday. Carter, who won the Top League in his first season with Kobe last year, signed a two-year contract with the club in 2018 but, with Japan’s domestic season
Rugby
11:44 AM BST Cash-strapped Rugby Australia is set to benefit from a World Rugby relief fund, while the Wallabies could face a compressed 13 Test-schedule through a proposed revision of the international calendar. World Rugby on Thursday announced a relief fund of $US100 million ($A158 million) as the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreck havoc on
10:46 AM BST Premiership club Saracens have asked their highest-earning players to defer part of their salaries until the start of the 2020-21 season and placed staff on the British government’s furloughing scheme. Players earning more than £75,000 per year will be asked to defer anything above that amount, the club said in a statement
9:21 AM BST Argentina will abandon plans to bid to host the 2027 Rugby World Cup to give Australia a free run as the southern hemisphere candidate, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph reported on Thursday. The Argentine government announced in 2016 that the country would bid to bring the tournament to South America for the first time
3:15 AM BST ESPN staff New Zealand Rugby [NZR] has frozen 50 percent of player payments for the remainder of the year as the governing body gets to grips with the financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. NZR and the New Zealand Rugby Players Association [NZRPA] on Thursday revealed that they had agreed to a
9:40 AM BST Senior players will take a significant pay cut believed to be at least 60 percent, after Rugby Australia and the Rugby Union Players’ Association finally reached a resolution on an interim pay deal. Negotiations started almost three weeks ago and RA has yet to determine when a mooted replacement competition for the
Apr 14, 2020 The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) said it would discuss a salary reduction programme for higher earning players and staff with the governing body’s finances badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend and the SRU board have taken a 25% wage deferral until Sept. 1 to help ease the
Apr 14, 2020 New Zealand Rugby says the concept of Australia staging every match in a rapid-fire Rugby Championship this year is a long way from becoming a reality. NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said a host of options are being considered around what form domestic and international rugby in the southern hemisphere could
Apr 14, 2020 An anticipated Easter resolution to the pay talks between Rugby Australia and the players’ union hasn’t eventuated by early Monday evening, with the clock now ticking especially loud for the NSW Waratahs. Going into Easter RA had been optimistic of getting a deal on salary cuts done with the Rugby Union Players’
3:50 PM BST Agustin Pichot will run against incumbent Bill Beaumont for the top job in World Rugby this month, the former Argentina international announced on Sunday. Pichot, who won 71 caps for the Pumas and has served as a World Rugby vice-chairman under former England skipper Beaumont for the last four years, promised radical