Archive June 10, 2025

Scrum-halves Charlie Bracken and Will Porter have been named in an England training squad for a four-day camp, while Northampton full-back George Furbank will continue his rehabilitation from concussion as part of the get-together at Pennyhill Park.

Saracens’ Bracken – the eldest son of 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Kyran – is in the senior squad for the first time after representing England Under-20s and spending part of this season on loan at Championship side Ampthill.

The 21-year-old is yet to make a Premiership start, having mainly acted as back-up to South African Ivan van Zyl.

Harlequins’ Porter, 26, has been rewarded for his impressive form for England A with a chance to work with the senior squad.

Coach Steve Borthwick is without several scrum-half options, with first-choice Alex Mitchell selected for the British and Irish Lions while Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet and Bath’s Ben Spencer are preparing for Saturday’s Premiership final and Bristol’s Harry Randall is injured.

Northampton’s 22-year-old second row Tom Lockett – who has played alongside Bracken at age-grade level and Porter during the second-string’s win over Ireland in February – is included along with Bristol prop George Kloska.

With Jamie George helping the Lions prepare for the tour of Australia that Luke Cowan-Dickie has been selected for, Northampton’s Curtis Langdon, Bristol’s Gabriel Oghre and Saracens’ Theo Dan are named as hookers.

Furbank was forced off early in Northampton’s Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles last month after being concussed.

He has had a season interrupted by injury after fracturing his arm in a win over South Africa’s Bulls in December that meant he missed the 2025 Six Nations.

Exeter wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who has not played since suffering a shoulder dislocation in December, will also use the camp to work his way back to match fitness.

Forwards:

Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Richard Capstick (Exeter), Arthur Clark (Gloucester), Alex Coles (Northampton), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Ben Curry (Sale), Theo Dan (Saracens), Trevor Davison (Northampton), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Afolabi Fasogbon (Gloucester), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Manny Iyogun (Northampton), Jack Kenningham (Harlequins), George Kloska (Bristol), Curtis Langdon (Northampton), Tom Lockett (Northampton), Gabriel Oghre (Bristol), Tom Pearson (Northampton), Bevan Rodd (Sale), Tom Willis (Saracens).

Backs:

Charlie Atkinson (Gloucester), Seb Atkinson (Gloucester), Oscar Beard (Harlequins), Charlie Bracken (Saracens), Joe Carpenter (Sale), Fraser Dingwall (Northampton), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter), George Ford (Sale), Rekeiti Ma’asi-White (Sale), Cadan Murley (Harlequins), Luke Northmore (Harlequins), Will Porter (Harlequins), Raffi Quirke (Sale), Tom Roebuck (Sale), Henry Slade (Exeter), Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton).

Rehabilitation: George Furbank (Northampton).

Scrum-halves Charlie Bracken and Will Porter have been named in an England training squad for a four-day camp, while Northampton full-back George Furbank will continue his rehabilitation from concussion as part of the get-together at Pennyhill Park.

Saracens’ Bracken – the eldest son of 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Kyran – is in the senior squad for the first time after representing England Under-20s and spending part of this season on loan at Championship side Ampthill.

The 21-year-old is yet to make a Premiership start, having mainly acted as back-up to South African Ivan van Zyl.

Harlequins’ Porter, 26, has been rewarded for impressive form for England A with promotion to the senior squad.

Coach Steve Borthwick is without several scrum-half options, with first-choice Alex Mitchell selected for the British and Irish Lions while Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet and Bath’s Ben Spencer are preparing for Saturday’s Premiership final and Bristol’s Harry Randall is injured.

Northampton’s 22-year-old second row Tom Lockett – who has played alongside Bracken at age-grade level and Porter during the second-string’s win over Ireland in February – is included along with Bristol prop George Kloska.

With Jamie George helping the Lions prepare for the tour of Australia that Luke Cowan-Dickie has been selected for, Northampton’s Curtis Langdon, Bristol’s Gabriel Oghre and Saracens’ Theo Dan are named as hookers.

Furbank was forced off early in Northampton’s Champions Cup final defeat by Bordeaux-Begles last month after being concussed.

He has had a season interrupted by injury after fracturing his arm in a win over South Africa’s Bulls in December and missing the 2025 Six Nations.

Exeter wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, who has not played since suffering a shoulder dislocation in December, will also use the camp to work his way back to match fitness.

Forwards:

Fin Baxter (Harlequins), Richard Capstick (Exeter), Arthur Clark (Gloucester), Alex Coles (Northampton), Chandler Cunningham-South (Harlequins), Ben Curry (Sale), Theo Dan (Saracens), Trevor Davison (Northampton), Alex Dombrandt (Harlequins), Afolabi Fasogbon (Gloucester), Nick Isiekwe (Saracens), Manny Iyogun (Northampton), Jack Kenningham (Harlequins), George Kloska (Bristol), Curtis Langdon (Northampton), Tom Lockett (Northampton), Gabriel Oghre (Bristol), Tom Pearson (Northampton), Bevan Rodd (Sale), Tom Willis (Saracens).

Backs:

Charlie Atkinson (Gloucester), Seb Atkinson (Gloucester), Oscar Beard (Harlequins), Charlie Bracken (Saracens), Joe Carpenter (Sale), Fraser Dingwall (Northampton), Immanuel Feyi-Waboso (Exeter), George Ford (Sale), Rekeiti Ma’asi-White (Sale), Cadan Murley (Harlequins), Luke Northmore (Harlequins), Will Porter (Harlequins), Raffi Quirke (Sale), Tom Roebuck (Sale), Henry Slade (Exeter), Ollie Sleightholme (Northampton).

Rehabilitation: George Furbank (Northampton).

After an embarrassing defeat by Norway on Friday night in their opening World Cup qualifier, Italy are once again called upon to build on their ruins.

Having failed to qualify for Russia 2018 and Qatar 2022, the threat of missing out on a third consecutive World Cup led to the sacking of manager Luciano Spalletti.

Spalletti, hailed as the saviour when appointed in August 2023, paid the price as he announced his own sacking in the aftermath.

Is it really possible that a nation like Italy, winners of four World Cups, can fail to qualify for a third consecutive tournament?

Italians asked the same question on the eve of the past two World Cup play-offs, lost in shocking fashion to Sweden and Macedonia respectively.

The 3-0 defeat to Norway has severely compromised the Azzurri hopes of finishing their group on top spot.

Despite a win against Moldova – placed number 154 in the Fifa Ranking – Italy are behind Norway, who lead Group I with nine more points than the Azzurri and a significantly superior goal difference.

With four wins out of four, Norway have played two more games than Italy. But the Azzurri now believe they need to win their next five games – boosting their goal difference in the process – before a must-win home match against Norway in November.

With just the top team automatically qualifying, Italy do not want to rely on another play-off.

The man to lead them? It won’t be Claudio Ranieri, after ‘the Tinkerman’ – who performed numerous miracles in his career – was immediately approached by the Italian Football Association.

The 73-year-old has declined the offer and decided to concentrate on his Roma activities after a successful spell as temporary boss last season. He has taken up an executive role at the club above new coach Gian Piero Gasperini.

Stefano Pioli, currently in Saudi Arabia at Al-Nassr and previously manager at the likes of Lazio and Inter Milan, is the frontrunner to be Spalletti’s potential successor.

“Qualifying for the next World Cup is simply necessary,” said Marco Nosotti, Sky Italia journalist.

Monday’s win against Moldova took place in a surreal atmosphere; on the bench sat a coach who had already been officially dismissed 48 hours before kick-off.

When Spalletti was appointed almost two years ago, he was at the peak of his career – fresh off winning the Scudetto with Napoli – while Italy had just been abandoned by Saudi Arabia-bound Roberto Mancini, who had given them a European title but also missed out on Qatar 2022.

So what went wrong?

Spalletti’s tenure ends after 24 games, with 12 wins and six defeats, a disastrous European Championship last summer, a promising Nations League group stage and a thunderous fall in Norway.

Having enjoyed success with a 3-5-2 system, it was as though the team had gone back a year to the miserable defeat to Switzerland in the last 16 of the Euros.

Questions remain why he prepared all week with a 3-4-2-1 formation before switching back to 3-5-2 in the pre-Norway meeting.

“After Euro 2024, Spalletti acknowledged he had tried to convey too many ideas to the players, ending up creating pressure and confusion,” Nosotti told the BBC.

“So he simplified things and went back to a three-man defence, a popular solution for many of the players in his squad.

“Mateo Retegui and Moise Kean were central forwards functional to his game, and he built his team around the Inter (Milan) group of players, who regularly play a 3-5-2 formation at club level too.

“Results were immediate, with victories in Paris and Brussels in the Nations League as a result of entertaining football.

“He again abandoned the path before Norway that gave him the most confidence. Certainly not only the coach is to blame; players at his disposal are what they are, but he could have understood that time was not enough to coach them the way he wants to.”

Nosotti added: “With Mancini, the national team took a step forward. His was a team without prima donnas.

Italian football has structural biases, which have been preventing the growth of the entire movement for years.

Only 34-36% of Serie A players are Italian, limiting the national team’s choice; although some are now playing abroad and developing into modern players with knowledge and quality.

For many years, the national youth teams have worked much more on the physical and tactical aspects of the game rather than on individual technique, unlike other nations such as Spain, France and Germany.

However, things are slowly changing at Coverciano, the Azzurri’s training centre on the outskirts of Florence.

Under the guidance of national youth team coordinator Maurizio Viscidi, Italy are trying to analyse results differently and teach a new way of being and acting on the pitch.

In recent years, the youth national teams have won European titles at Under-17 and Under-19 level, and finished runners-up in the Under-20 World Cup.

Ultimately though, these same youngsters are often not allowed to gain experience in their respective first teams, or in case they are, the main requested focus is on tactics and safety.

“It is not only a generational problem, but also a methodological one,” said former AC Milan boss Fabio Capello.

Canadian Grand Prix

Venue: Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal Dates: 13-15 June Race start: 19:00 BST on Sunday

Formula 1 heads back to North America this weekend for the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

There is now some daylight at the top of the drivers’ standings between the McLaren drivers and the rest with Oscar Piastri 10 points ahead of team-mate Lando Norris, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen a further 39 points behind Norris.

Should McLaren be focusing on one driver for the title? We have seen other teams be dominant at the beginning of a season and slip back later on. – Luke

This debate is an interesting one.

On one side, teams often receive criticism when they impose team orders and favour one driver over another.

On another, the same can happen when they have two evenly matched drivers, both in a title fight, and they split the points between them against a rival who is the only driver challenging from another team.

The second is clearly the case this year.

For parallels in history, one can look back, for example, to 1986, when the Williams was the fastest car but Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet made a pair of warring team-mates and McLaren’s Alain Prost drove a wonderful season to slip through the middle and claim the title in a dramatic final race in Australia.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are – so far – very much not Mansell and Piquet. Relations between them are good and the intra-team battle is being conducted in a way for which all teams would wish.

McLaren don’t really have a choice at the moment but to conduct this season as they are so far doing.

Norris and Piastri have contracts that guarantee them equal treatment, and as a team McLaren’s philosophy is to allow free competition between their drivers.

The one proviso is that they remember they are driving for a team and that, from time to time, they may be asked to do something that maximises the team’s interests but perhaps not their own.

McLaren are approaching this with a philosophy of openness. Keep talking. Don’t let anything go unsaid. Be honest. If an issue comes up, it’ll because no one had thought of it. Not because of any attempt to conceal.

They accept that the drivers are likely to clash, but they believe that, because of their approach, they will be able to handle that, too.

So far, it’s working. They accept that Max Verstappen is a real threat, even that there is a risk he could ‘do a Prost’.

But as Piastri put it in a BBC Sport interview in Monaco: “It is a possibility, yes. But, on both sides of the garage here, we want to win because we’ve been the best driver, the best team, including against the other car in the team. You always want to earn things on merit and you want to be able to beat everyone, including your team-mates.

“So that gives Lando and I the best chance of our personal goals of trying to become drivers’ world champion, while also achieving the main result for the team, which is the constructors’ championship.

“If we do get beaten by Max, of course that would hurt, but we would know that we both had the same opportunity, we were racing everybody out there and that’s just how it panned out.

Has the Franco Colapinto swap at Alpine backfired? He does not seem to have been much of a step over the less experienced Jack Doohan. – Tim

It would be going quite far to say that it has backfired after just three races, but it’s true to say that it’s hard to discern any major difference between Colapinto’s performance and Doohan’s before him.

When executive adviser – and de facto team boss – Flavio Briatore brought Colapinto in, he said he wanted him to “be fast, not crash and score points”.

So far, the Argentine has failed to meet that target on every level.

Colapinto had a significant crash on his debut weekend at Imola. In his three qualifying sessions so far, he is 0.392 seconds on average slower than team-mate Pierre Gasly, compared with Doohan’s 0.366secs over the first six races. And, like Doohan, he has scored no points.

Colapinto has another couple of races before he reaches the five Alpine’s statement announcing his elevation to the race seat said he would have before the situation was reassessed – a deadline Briatore immediately rejected as soon as he spoke in public about the swap.

Why is the last chicane in the Canadian Grand Prix so difficult, causing many drivers to hit the ‘Wall of Champions’? – Christopher

The concrete wall on the exit of Turns 12 and 13 at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve earned its nickname after Damon Hill, Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve all crashed there in 1999.

Many others – including Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button – have since followed suit.

It’s tricky because it is approached from very high speed, drivers have to bounce over the kerbs to be fast, and if they misjudge that, there is a wall waiting to collect them on the outside, with no run-off area.

With Spain likely having two races next season and Italy having had two for the last few years, I find it odd that the UK hasn’t had more than one at different tracks in a season since 1993. Considering the majority of the teams are based here, the massive F1 fanbase that Britain has and the very good attendances Silverstone gets every year, why do you think the UK has not been considered to host more than one? – James

Two reasons – money and circuit specification.

Imola returned to the calendar in the pandemic year of 2020, and a way was found to keep it on afterwards because the local region of Emilia-Romagna and the Italian government saw its promotional value and found the sanctioning fee. Hence the event’s rather convoluted and inelegant official title.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that F1 chairman Stefano Domenicali is from Imola and was keen for the race to continue.

In Spain, Barcelona has kept its place next year because it has a contract through 2026, while Madrid is entering the first year of its new contract. Again, state funding is involved in both events.

Britain has two issues. One, while the country has many terrific race tracks, only Silverstone meets modern F1 standards. And there is no money for any of them to pay F1 to host a race. Making the British Grand Prix work on a financial basis is difficult enough for Silverstone as it is.

On top of that, slowly but surely the idea of countries hosting more than one race is likely to die away, so it’s highly unlikely there would be any appetite for another country to have two.

Would competition be more level across all teams, and expenditure lower if rules existed for longer periods without change? – Matthew

Expenditure is set by the budget cap. It makes no difference what the rules are, teams will spend to that limit and no more.

As for keeping the rules in place for a longer period, yes, everyone accepts that the field closes up the longer a set of regulations remains in place. You can see that this year, when the field is probably more compact in terms of time from front to back than it has ever been.

But it is part of the DNA of F1 to change the rules every few years.

Often it’s because there is a feeling the cars need to be slowed down, or changed in character in some ways; sometimes it’s because it has been perceived that the engine formula needs to change.

For 2026, it’s all of those reasons.

The new power-unit rules were conceived as a way of simplifying the engines and attracting the VW Group into F1. After Audi committed, Ford and General Motors followed suit.

Having created a new power-unit design, with a much greater proportion of its performance derived from the electrical part of the engine, the chassis rules needed to be changed to ensure the cars worked holistically with that engine, and also to iron out some issues that were perceived to have arisen with the existing ones.

The process of refining the 2026 chassis regulations has not been without its difficulties, to say the least, and there are questions as to how successful the new rules will be.