Category Sports News

United Rugby Championship: Dragons v Cardiff

Venue: Rodney Parade, Newport Date: Friday, 17 October Kick-off: 19:45 BST

Cardiff number eight Taulupe Faletau has given Wales a boost before the autumn internationals by returning to face Dragons in the United Rugby Championship derby.

The 34-year-old will play his first game of the season after recovering from a calf injury and faces Wales rival Aaron Wainwright on Friday night.

New Wales head coach Steve Tandy names his squad on Tuesday, 21 October with the opening game against Argentina on Sunday, 9 November.

“Whenever he’s on the team-sheet, he always lifts everybody’s confidence in the team,” said Cardiff coach Corniel van Zyl.

“We know what he can do. Hopefully he can bring that to the pitch.”

Dragons head coach Filo Tiatia has made 10 personnel changes from the side that lost 49-0 to Glasgow.

Faletau is one of five returning internationals for Cardiff alongside wing Josh Adams, centre Ben Thomas, prop Corey Domachowski and flanker Alex Mann.

Jacob Beetham switches to outside centre where he partners Thomas, who returns from suspension.

Dragons are looking to end Cardiff’s decade of dominance in the east Wales derby.

Dragons have lost 19 matches in all competitions against Cardiff and the past 20 league matches between the two sides, which includes the Rainbow Cup fixture in 2021.

Cardiff’s previous league defeat in this fixture came in December 2014, while Dragons’ last win was a Challenge Cup quarter-final success in April 2015.

“We have spoken about what this fixture means to us,” said Wainwright.

“It’s not something to be proud of, having a record like that against them.

“I have been at Dragons all my career and haven’t beaten Cardiff, so that’s definitely an achievement I want to get this weekend.”

Wainwright was part of the Wales team that ended an 18-match losing streak by defeating Japan in July.

“In my head, going through the period we’ve gone through with Wales, being able to put that to bed, that’s sort of a similar mindset going into this weekend,” said Wainwright, who added beating Cardiff “would be a nice double”.

“Cardiff will have that edge about them and think they can just turn up and roll over over us.

Cardiff have started the season with two wins in three games and lie fourth in the URC table.

Dragons have gone 20 games without winning a league match since defeating Ospreys in September 2024 but van Zyl is wary of their local rivals.

“It’s a Welsh derby, which are always tight affairs and Rodney Parade is a tough place to go,” said van Zyl.

“The Dragons rotated their team a bit last week, so they will be fresh and hugely motivated to take us on.

“They will throw everything at us, but we are excited by the challenge.”

Dragons: O’Brien (co-capt); Dyer, Owen, Ackerman, Inisi; de Beer, R Williams; W Jones, Coghlan, Hunt, S Davies, Carter (co-capt), Lewis-Hughes, Beddall, Wainwright.

Replacements: Burrows, Martinez, D Lewis, Screech, Woodman, N Armstrong, C Evans, Anderson.

Cardiff: Winnett; Adams, Beetham, B Thomas, Bowen; Sheedy, A Davies; Domachowski, Belcher (capt), Assiratti, McNally, Nott, Mann, D Thomas, Faletau.

Replacements: E Lloyd, Southworth, Sebastian, Thornton, Lawrence, Basham, Mulder, I Lloyd.

Referee: Federico Vedovelli (FIR)

Assistant Referees: Craig Evans (WRU), Adam Jones (WRU)

A resurgent Marnus Labuschagne scored his fourth century in five innings to further press his case for a recall to Australia’s side for the Ashes.

The 31-year-old batter scored 159 on day two of Queensland’s Sheffield Shield match against South Australia, which follows scores of 130 and 105 in Australia’s domestic 50-over competition and 160 in the previous round of red-ball matches.

Labuschagne, who has scored 11 hundreds in 58 Tests, was dropped for Australia’s three-Test series against West Indies this summer after a poor run of form.

A return to form for Labuschagne would not entirely solve the issues Australia have around their batting line-up for the first Test against England at Perth on 21 November.

He was pushed up to open in his most recent Test – the World Test Championship final defeat by South Africa in which he returned scores of 17 and 22 – but has been batting at his previous position of number three for Queensland.

Were he to return at number three, the position he has scored all of his Test hundreds, Australia would still be looking for at least one opener.

Twenty-year-old Sam Konstas played in West Indies but managed only 50 runs across six innings. Though he scored a century for Australia A in India last month he has not passed 50 in four innings in domestic cricket this season and was dismissed by Scott Boland for a four-ball duck on Wednesday.

Tasmania’s uncapped opener Jake Weatherald, 30, scored a 99-ball 94 on day two of a low-scoring match against Western Australia on Thursday to push his case.

If Labuschagne returned as an opener then it would allow Australia to pick Cameron Green at number three and retain fellow all-rounder Beau Webster in the middle order, though Green only has one fifty in eight innings in that position since being pushed up the order for the Test final against South Africa.

Britain’s Emma Raducanu has withdrawn from her final two events of the year because of the illness she has been battling over the past 10 days.

The 22-year-old was due to play in Tokyo and Hong Kong but has decided to fly home to recover before starting her preparations for 2026.

Those preparations will include coach Francisco Roig, as the pair have agreed to work together again next season.

Raducanu had her blood pressure taken during her first-round match with Ann Li in Wuhan last week and retired when trailing 6-1 4-1 on an oppressively humid day.

She again required a visit from the doctor at this week’s Ningbo Open, where she lost in three sets to Chinese wildcard Zhu Lin in the opening round.

Raducanu was also moving far from freely in the deciding set against Zhu because of the lower back problem that has troubled her at times this year.

Those results meant an encouraging season, in which Raducanu rose into the world’s top 30 for the first time in more than three years, ended with three successive defeats.

Raducanu won 28 matches this year and reached the semi-finals in Washington, but her most impressive week was at the Miami Open in March.

The British number one reached the quarter-finals of the WTA 1000 event, beating eighth seed Emma Navarro on the way before losing in three sets to fourth-ranked Pegula.

She was coached by Mark Petchey from Miami until Wimbledon, with Roig taking over in time for the US Open.

The initial agreement with Rafael Nadal’s former coach was until the end of the season but the partnership will continue, with a training block pencilled in for the end of the year.

Raducanu told BBC Sport her three-day trial with Roig after Wimbledon was like a “black ops mission” as they tried to keep the meeting secret.

She came very close to beating world number one Aryna Sabalenka at their first tournament together in Cincinnati in August.

Three of the world’s top-rated racehorses – Ombudsman, Delacroix and Calandagan – have been confirmed to meet in a blockbuster Champion Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.

Ombudsman, number one in the rankings, swooped late to beat Delacroix (rated joint sixth) in the Coral-Eclipse Stakes before the tables were turned in the Juddmonte International – and the pair now meet for a third time.

King George winner Calandagan, who is joint ninth in the global rankings, joins them, along with last year’s Irish Champion Stakes winner Economics who races for the first time in a year.

The Champion Stakes headlines five top-level Group One contests on a seven-race card on Qipco British Champions Day – the country’s richest raceday with a total of £4.35m prize money on offer.

Ombudsman’s stablemate Field Of Gold will run in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes for trainer John Gosden, whose strong hand on the day also features Gold Cup victor Trawlerman in the Long Distance Cup.

Owners Godolphin ran a pacemaker to assist Ombudsman in the Juddmonte at York and do so again in the £1.3m Champion Stakes, with Devil’s Advocate supplemented at a cost of £75,000.

Field Of Gold was an impressive winner of the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot before a surprise defeat in the Sussex Stakes, after which he was found to be lame.

Hoping to go one better in the QEII will be Rosallion, trained by Richard Hannon, after three narrow top-level defeats this year, while Karl Burke’s filly Fallen Angel comes into the race off a Group One hat-trick.

Kalpana, runner-up to Calandagan in the King George, is among the favourites in the Fillies and Mares Stakes having finished seventh in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Andrew Balding, second in the British trainers’ championship behind Delacroix’s trainer Aidan O’Brien, saddles Kalpana while his other hopes include Almeric and Fox Legacy in the Champion Stakes and Never So Brave and Marvelman in the QEII.

“Ascot is a fantastic way to end the season at the world’s greatest racecourse,” he told BBC Radio Berkshire.

“It’s certainly been an amazing year for us and hopefully we can add to it on Saturday.”

DP World India Championship – first round

-7 K Nakajima (Jpn); -5 J Campillo (Spa); -4 J Luiten (Ned), N Elvira (Spa), B Griffin (US), M Schneider (Ger), M Kim (US), D Sheoran (Ind)

Selected others: -3 R McIlroy (NI), A Sullivan (Eng); -1 V Hovland (Nor)

Rory McIlroy carded an up-and-down first-round 69 in the DP World India Championship after deciding to leave his driver out of the bag.

Playing for the first time since helping Europe win the Ryder Cup in New York last month, McIlroy fired six birdies and three bogeys to sit four shots off Japan’s Keita Nakajima.

Despite opting for a safer approach off the tee, Northern Ireland’s McIlroy said he still found Delhi Golf Club trickier than expected.

“You’re just really trying to be as conservative as possible off the tee and then you’re trying to pick off birdies on the par-fives and then maybe pick up a couple more, but it’s a tricky golf course,” said the five-time major winner.

Starting at the 10th, McIlroy birdied his opening hole before slipping to back-to-back bogeys. He picked up shots on the par-fives 14th and 18th and gained three more shots on his back nine before a bogey six at the eighth.

The Masters champion said he has no plans to change his strategy off the tee.

“You just have to get the ball in the fairway,” he said.

“The rough is unpredictable. You get a lot of fliers like I did with the last two there.”

Nakajima carded eight birdies and one bogey in an impressive opening 65.

The 25-year-old, whose sole DP World Tour victory came at last year’s Indian Open, is two shots clear of Spain’s Jorge Campillo.

Playing with McIlroy, US Ryder Cup player Ben Griffin opened with a 68 while McIlroy’s European team-mate Viktor Hovland signed for a 71.

The Rugby Championship will not be played in 2026, organiser Sanzaar has confirmed.

Traditionally played between August and October, the Rugby Championship is contested by South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina – with the Springboks the current holders.

But it will not go ahead next year, with the southern hemisphere’s leading international competition mothballed for a season to create space for New Zealand to tour world champions South Africa in a series billed as “the Greatest Rivalry”, as well as World Rugby’s inaugural Nations Championship.

Sanzaar confirmed that the Rugby Championship will be played 2028 and 2029 before pausing again in 2030 for an international multi-week tour, likely to be another series between the Springboks and All Blacks.

Next year, World Rugby launches the Nations Championship, taking place in the July and November Test windows and featuring the leading teams in the world – the Six Nations sides, their Rugby Championship counterparts and two more invited teams.

“Looking ahead, our joint venture is committed to driving the next chapter of southern hemisphere rugby,” Sanzaar CEO Brendan Morris said.