Sport

Owen Farrell free to play at World Cup after red card rescinded
England fly half was facing six-match ban after sending-off against Wales on Saturday – but panel overturned the card instead

Mystifying in fact.

They have already been champions of England seven times in 12 years and now Pep Guardiola’s team have repeated the epic 1999 single-season achievement of Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United – Premier League, FA Cup, Champions League.

Presumably someone will manage it at some point and gain the League Cup in the same season too….

The fixtures will not be confirmed until the final line-up is known but it will be a cross-pool format with each side playing three matches and there is every chance that the Red Roses could face the Black Ferns for the first time since losing last year’s World Cup final – and on New Zealand soil. World Rugby confirmed on Friday that New Zealand will host WXV1, with matches played in different cities across three weekends, Oct 21 and 28 and Nov 4.

Therein lies one of the flaws of this year’s launch event: two of those weekends clash with the men’s World Cup semi-finals and final, so how much exposure and cut-through will WXV get?

The “mission” of WXV, according to World Rugby’s press release, is to raise the profile of the women’s game but it is going to be hard to do that with the sport’s biggest event reaching its climax at the same time. The two tournaments may be taking place in different time zones but the focus of rugby fans and media will be firmly on events in France, with broadcasters in particular unlikely to have huge budgets or airtime to bid for the rights.

What you actually do is have all of these competitions on the same annual cycle, in the same place. As with mooted plan have the Nations’ Cup (ie, all the second line national teams who didn’t make the World Cup) in the same place and at the same time as the World Cup.

Every four years have that 6 week (?) jamboree of all rugby – major nations, minor, male and female – in the same place at the same time.

If nothing else the cross breeding certainties will improve the game in the next generation.

Lionel Messi in talks over £320m-a-year Saudi Arabia move

That’s one way to recycle the oil money I guess. A 3 year contract to be a (almost) billionaire.

Isn’t it so wondrously Marxist. The labourer gainst the full value of his work.

Adele Roberts breaks London Marathon record year after finishing chemotherapy

That’s pretty damn good.

Ah:

….became the fastest woman to run a marathon with a stoma bag

Still, makes it easier to avoid these sorts of accidents. Just empty the bag…..

Race organisers reviewed data from their tracking system after a report of an “unsporting, competitive advantage” and confirmed that a runner had taken a vehicle during part of the route, the BBC reported. Zakrzewski is understood to have travelled by car for 2.5 miles, covering one mile in just 100 seconds.

Yes, OK, unsporting.

The trouble with Slavs is they never do read any Grantland Rice.

Now run the counterfactual, could England have won?

Well, could is a bit loaded because anyone can on the day. But could/would they?

The commission ruled that there were sufficient mitigating factors including the late change in the dynamics and positioning of the opposing player, which should have resulted in the issue of a yellow card rather than a red card.

Steward’s red card has therefore not been upheld and he is free to play.

Yes, yes, I know, ref on the day and all that. Still speculate away.

Scotland

France by a mile

Ireland out of sight.

Watched France Ireland yesterday. And it just seemed like there were no fast blokes on the pitch.

Which is weird, because there most certainly were. Possibly my perception is shot. But more likely, there was no one particularly faster than their oppo. So speed mismatches weren’t there – which becomes the impression that there were no fast blokes.

Still, a slightly odd impression to come away with from that match – no fast blokes?

He described Mrs Czernuszka’s position as “extremely vulnerable” and noted a size disparity between the two players, telling the court:”The claimant was thereby pinned in a bent over position by the actions of the first defendant.”

“She sustained an immediate severe spinal fracture and spinal cord injury as a direct result of this tackle,” he said.

So, size disparity in female rugby leads to significant injury. I this anti-trans playing female rugby, in that it’s an example of the dangers? Or pro-, in that it already happens anyway so what’s the fuss?

The RFU has stood firm over its ban on tackles above the waist, which its council refused to consult the wider game on before voting for.

But it’s going to change the game substantially, isn’t it? Creating a maul by holding the player up isn’t going to work any more. Just as one example. Wrapping them up so they can’t pass won’t work any more either. Quite how you defend against a pick up and drive from the base of the ruck just by the tryline isn’t obvious either.

It’s going to really, really, change the game.

Scottish rugby chiefs are to ban biological males from full contact female matches after conceding that their previous “trans-inclusive” rules were dangerous.

A new policy, to be introduced next week, will bring Scotland into line with England, Ireland and Wales, where the participation of trans females in women’s games has already been stopped due to safety fears.

A review carried out by the federation found that transgender women had “retained advantages in strength, stamina and physique” compared to “the average cis-gender [non-trans] woman”.

Biological males could previously participate in competitive female games in Scotland if they took female hormones.

However, a committee set up to review the policy found that “testosterone suppression does not negate this physical advantage over cis-gender women and so cannot guarantee competitive fairness and safety”.

At the first stress test of his promise, Coe’s rhetoric has come unstuck. Far from defending fair competition for women, his organisation has formulated a proposal that would debase the very notion. If it is approved in March – and the official line is that this is not a fait accompli – it would not simply be a betrayal of female athletes. It would, quite frankly, be gutless leadership.

Yes, trans and sports. Obviously, birth sex, your gender doesn’t matter a damn – gender being that social construct.

According to consultation documents revealed by Telegraph Sport, the governing body’s preferred option is to allow transgender athletes and those with differences in sexual development (DSDs) to compete in female events, so long as their testosterone is reduced below 2.5 nanomoles per litre for two years.

Now, whether that’s the right number or not isn’t my point. But the rules are going to have to be of that order. Because “differences in sexual development”.

Can’t recall what Caster Semenya’s thing is but absolutely no one is claiming that she’s gone off and had tackle removed etc. Rather – I think, without looking it up – she’s androgen insensitive or summat? And if she isn’t then there are others who are. XY, but the insensitivity means the testosterone produces no reaction and so the default human development happens, to female. Testes in place of ovaries – and in the place of ovaries – and development of vagina, subcutaneous fat on the hips and all the rest.

OK, so we’re trying to be fair here. Identified as female at birth – identified, not allocated – and often, until puberty and the absence of menarche no one knows any different.

Well?

So how do we build our category then? “Women” who are here, non-women who are there?

There is in fact no answer here. Sure, tackle slicing can be dealt with easily enough. But there really are edge cases. And we’re going to be unfair to some on either side of that edge whatever we do. So, which set of edge people are we going to be unfair to? Testosterone levels might be the least bad method. Maybe.

The real point here being that we need some distinction to be made because that’s the whole point of having women’s sport, a distinction is being made. And merely “no tackle slicers” isn’t good enough as a distinction. So, what is?

Are you better off than your parents?
My parents are dead, so probably yes.

I. Botham.

England edge out France to win Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup

I think wheelchair rugby’s a great idea.

But I end up thinking there’s a certain absurdity to carrying over the league/union distinction into it…….

Given the wide spread of interests among readers here, anyone actually know what the rule differences are between w/chair/union and w/chair/league? And why are they specifically to do with those two code origins?

And we’re looking for something more than a northern proles against southern shandy drinking toffs difference.

Pool D: Wales 12-18 Cook Islands

Cook Islands even have a rugby team?

Ahhhhh…..league. Cook Islands being like the New Zealand C team, Wales being, ummm…….

“I have never, for a long long time, thought ‘I wish I was still playing’,” he says. “But, when you get in and around a competition like this and see the players, all the hype around it, you do think… ‘hmmm maybe 10 minutes’. But the reality is that I wouldn’t last 10 seconds. I see it as chapters in life. If every chapter was the same it would be a very boring book. I’ve got new challenges and helping the guys to make this the best tournament is one of them.”

Seems to be maturing well, dunn’e? Knowing what you can no longer do being an important part of it.

In spite of these conditions, 21-year old Florence Nakaggwa is out training in the outskirts of Masaka, a town 80 miles south-west of the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

She cycles between 30-60 miles (50-100km) each day, switching from tarmac to the red soil of village roads.

Earlier this year, Nakaggwa became Uganda’s first female rider to receive a professional cycling contract, signing with Team Amani, a racing collective fiercely pushing for inclusivity for riders across east Africa. Based in the Netherlands it has sister clubs in Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda.

The team provides her with 900,000 Ugandan shillings (about £200) a month, equipment, clothing and representation at races around the globe.

Now, I’m not all that sure about what is really required for bicycle racing. In the physical sense that is. Yes, obviously, some ghastly level of fitness and willingness to train and all that. And I’d guess the equipment and at least a modicum of decent roads etc.

I could be persuaded though into believing that what is required for cycling is not that far away from that required for long distance running – lungs and hearts. Which would make those upland areas of East Africa a natural recruiting area.

So, anyone who knows more about this than me want to weigh in? Are we going to see cycling teams scouring as the football lot have been doing these past few decades?

My immediate – and appalling – reaction to this headline:

Oscar Pistorius kneels in tearful apology to Reeva Steenkamp’s father

Emily Hamilton, 46, who was among 15 protesters waving pink and blue flags at the open session, claimed top names in the sport were privately supportive of her cause. “I’m a Harlequins fan, a trans woman and an ex-player of 18 seasons, but as of last week I’m prohibited from playing rugby now,” said the founding co-chair of the QuinsPride supporters group.

You’re banned from playing rugby against those your male derived physique will be dangerous to.

Just like you’re not allowed to play against the under-16 team. Your physique makes you dangerous to the other players.

Tough, err, tittie.