Ireland prop Andrew Porter has been ruled out of Leinster's United Rugby Championship final with the Bulls at Croke Park.

The 25-year-old missed Wales' Women's Six Nations campaign because of injury, but is set to return against Barbarians on 27 June.

Rugby World Cup winner says he feels like he is picking up the fundraising baton from people such as Doddie Weir and Rob BurrowSunshine streams into Lewis Moody’s conservatory near Bath as we share a sofa with his dog, Ziggy, who has swapped his usual cheerful bounciness for a peaceful snooze. Moody has already explained how Ziggy licked away the tears rolling down his face, and the face of his wife, Annie, when they told their teenage sons that he has motor neurone disease. And now he says something extraordinary with a certainty that feels far stronger and more enduring than the mid-afternoon sunlight.“It is a gift and a privilege,” Moody says of the lesson he has gleaned from the terrible diagnosis he received last October. “I’m not sure if privilege is the right word but MND helps you really understand what you love and what makes you happy. So you learn to apply your time in that direction and, invariably, being happy is about doing things that feel purposeful and spending time with the people you love and doing things that help others.” Continue reading...

Ex-Wales coach Wayne Pivac tells Scrum V that Welsh rugby missed a trick in 2019 by not combining Ospreys with his Scarlets side to create a super region.

Shaun Edwards' departure from France's national team is being negotiated after nearly seven years on their staff.

Chris chats to the four men leading their clubs in this weekend’s Prem play-offs.

Ireland forward Aoife Wafer is named the Women's Six Nations Player of the Championship for the second year in a row.

Two-time Women's Rugby World Cup-winner Marlie Packer agrees to join Harlequins for next season when she leaves Saracens.

Playing Argentina and South Africa away from home before Fiji at Murrayfield on consecutive July weekends is a daunting prospect for Scotland in the inaugural Nations Championship.

Women’s head coach to select staff for New Zealand tourLions team mainly be made up of dominant Red RosesJo Yapp, the women’s British and Irish Lions head coach, revealed that she has spoken to Andy Farrell to pick “the brains of those who have gone before” as she begins her preparations for the inaugural tour. Yapp, who was in charge of Australia at last year’s World Cup, was appointed last month as the head coach for the 2027 women’s Lions tour of New Zealand. Farrell was the head coach of the men’s winning tour of Australia in 2025 and is the head coach of Ireland. The 46-year-old said: “I think it is really important to draw on the experiences before. I have already spoken to Andy Farrell who was really helpful so my plan is to make sure we pick the brains of those who have gone before because it would be naive not to use that experience.“He was super open, which was really lovely. One of the things he talked about in terms of when you are pulling together your staff is that you get the right people there. The people you trust, you can work with. I think that is massively important for me when I am considering people to bring together.” Yapp has not yet selected the rest of her coaching staff and said it will be about “getting the best people in the room” to be as “strong as we can and to create the best environment for the players”. It has not been confirmed when the rest of the coaches will be announced. A worry for fans is that the Lions team will be mainly made up of England players with the Red Roses an all-conquering side in the women’s game. The team are world champions and are on a winning run of 38 consecutive games. Yapp said: “Ultimately we want to pick the best players. As it stands, and having watched a lot of Six Nations, PWR, Celtic Challenge games there are a lot of very good players across the other unions that will definitely be putting their hands up. Although it is not a long time [until the tour], there are a lot of games to be played. So I am looking forward to seeing how the games go and how they put their hands up.” There have been questions around how many fans will make the journey to New Zealand and if somewhere like France may have drawn bigger crowds. But the Lions CEO, Ben Calveley, said they “stand by” their decision and did not rule out going to France in future tours. “We are really focused now on 2027 but there will be a second women’s Lions tour in 2031 and we are about to start a piece of work on what the future looks like,” he said. “We are not in any way obligated to go to the same countries that the men have visited in the past. “We are not going to New Zealand because the Lions have toured there historically, we are going because we believe it to be the right location for the inaugural tour. In the future you could see us go to completely new and different territories which is really exciting.” Elsewhere, the Rugby Football Union council member who made a discriminatory comment about the World Cup winner and pundit Maggie Alphonsi has resigned. Matthew Smith, who represented Warwickshire, had his privileges suspended after a disciplinary hearing in May for posting on Facebook: “Can someone please explain to me WTF does Maggie Alphonsi know about men’s rugby?” A Warwickshire RFU statement read: “We would like to announce that Matt Smith has resigned from his position as chair of Warwickshire RFU, in light of a recent disciplinary process. We want to be clear that we take issues of sexism and misogyny seriously.” Continue reading...

If you want to understand warrior mentality, look no further than these unflinching icons of the 1970s and 80sPeople talk a lot about character in sport without always agreeing on a precise definition. Hanging in there when times get tough? Arguably that is a pre-requisite across top-level competition. The ability to keep cool, calm and collected under the most extreme pressure? Valuable, certainly, but not every cherished champion – John McEnroe or Diego Maradona, for example – fits that unflappable mould. A more accurate gauge, perhaps, is how much certain individuals are missed once they are gone. In recent days rugby union has lost two titans who absolutely belong in that special category. Not every modern Prem flanker will be familiar with the exploits of Fergus Slattery and Roger Spurrell, both of whom have passed away at 77 and 71 respectively, but for many of us they exemplified what unquenchable warrior spirit looks like. Give or take Willie John McBride, there was no more renowned Irish international forward in the 1970s than “Slattery of Ireland”, to borrow from Cliff Morgan’s famous commentary of the 1973 Barbarians v New Zealand game in Cardiff. On the 1974 British & Irish Lions tour he was at the peak of his powers on the hard fields of South Africa, setting new standards for fit, fast-paced and forthright wing forwards everywhere. As the suitably warm tribute issued by Blackrock College put it: “He played with ferocity and grace but without ego or theatre … Fergus never sought admiration but earned it universally.” Spurrell, for some bizarre reason, never won an England cap but the example he set as Bath’s unflinching captain during their glory years remains indelible. His former teammate Jeremy Guscott described him in the Rugby Paper as “a true Bath rugby icon” and the former paratrooper was renowned as one of the hardest players in a notable tough Bath pack who underpinned the club’s consistent success. The journalist Jon Newcombe described the curly blond-haired Spurrell as “the West Country’s answer to Jean-Pierre Rives” and his impact on youthful imaginations was similarly vivid.Perhaps it helped that Slattery and Spurrell were also men with a bit about them off the field. Among his many accomplishments, Slattery was a highly amusing public speaker and did a huge amount of unselfish work for charity. Spurrell, in his early Bath years, combined his rugby with working as a shepherd in the Mendip Hills. Subsequently he ran a well-known nightclub in what used to be the public conveniences near the river Avon in Bath. If a trip to “Bog Island” was not for the faint of heart, Spurrell was ahead of his time when it came to media relations. While other players in the amateur era beavered away at their desks on Monday mornings, he would happily take calls from your correspondent on condition the phone didn’t ring too early in the morning after a busy club night. A ferocious opponent on the field – his training night duels with his Bath back-row rival Andy Robinson were legendary – he could be extremely obliging off it. It is another reason why he and the personable Slattery are being mourned far and wide. Spurrell was a Cornishman but poured his heart and soul into Bath and was universally respected as a result. Slattery, sadly, suffered from dementia in the latter years of his life, a particularly cruel condition for such a popular, articulate man. It is hard to sidestep the tragic conclusion that the game he loved ultimately failed to love him back. He is by no means the only hero of yesteryear to whom that grim asterisk applies. Anything that makes rugby safer for today’s gladiators and their successors clearly has to be paramount. But anyone who has ever pulled on a pair of boots will also tell you there is no more motivating feeling than playing with someone utterly committed to putting their teammates’ interests ahead of anything as trifling as their own personal wellbeing. There was another perfect contemporary example in Exeter’s crucial 32-12 win over Saracens at the weekend. Not everyone perceives Henry Slade as a warrior, possibly because he has the ability to make the game look deceptively simple. They overlook his continuing defiance of Type 1 diabetes and the 74 caps he has earned in England’s midfield, hardly the sign of a dilettante. And who was that, head already bandaged to protect a tender cauliflower ear, somehow scrambling back to make an almost impossible try-saving tackle on Rotimi Segun? In addition to quietly contributing 17 points? When they talk rugby in Devon decades from now, Slade will still be among the region’s all-time favourite sons. Continue reading...

Ugo, Ashy and Danny chat to Henry Slade and preview the Prem play-offs.

Premiership Women’s Rugby: Exeter 50-24 SaleChiefs will play Saracens in playoff semi-finalClaudia Moloney-MacDonald is hitting her best form at just the right time for Exeter as her performance was pivotal in the hosts’ victory against Sale. The England back, who was a part of the Red Roses’ grand slam-winning Six Nations campaign, scored four tries to confirm the club’s semi-final against Saracens on 14 June.Moloney-MacDonald, who scored two tries against Bristol last week, was impressive in open play and among her scoring frenzy was a sensational effort in which she hunted down a kick through to dot down before the ball rolled out of play. Continue reading...

Leinster will face the Bulls in the United Rugby Championship final for the second year running as the Irish province beat the Stormers in a bruising semi-final.