THERE ARE FRESH concerns for the Lions’ tour of South Africa after the Springboks reported three positive Covid-19 cases in their camp. Warren Gatland and his squad are still due to fly out to South Africa this evening for an eight-game tour culminating in three Tests against the Springboks. However, South Africa is currently dealing with an alarming third wave of Covid-19 and it has reached the Springboks’ camp. Three players tested positive for the virus following PCR testing on arrival at the Boks’ team base in Johannesburg yesterday, meaning training has been cancelled indefinitely. Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber’s entire squad is now in self-isolation as a precaution until further specialist…

IT FEELS LIKE only yesterday that Murray Kinsella and Bernard Jackman were naming their prospective Lions squads on our The42 Rugby Weekly podcast, more than a year out from the 2021 tour to South Africa — in doing so pissing off countless listeners who dusted off the old reliable ‘slow news day’ barb in their subsequent correspondence. And in truth, it was a slow news day: it was 30 April 2020 and we had all been plunged into a kind of sportless hell. With the world at a standstill, there wasn’t a ball kicked, flicked or pucked for months on end; retrospective analysis and future projections became all the rage…

CJ STANDER HAS played his final game for Munster, the retiring Ireland international ruled out of tomorrow night’s Guinness Pro14 Rainbow Cup [KO 6pm, Irish time] clash against Zebre in Parma. The number eight suffered burns in a fire pit accident last weekend alongside team-mates Damian de Allende, RG Snyman and Mike Haley. All four miss out on the trip to Italy, while neither of Munster’s Lions, Conor Murray and Tadhg Beirne, are included for the fixture, which has been rendered a dead rubber after Benetton automatically qualified for next week’s Rainbow Cup final. Peter O’Mahony returns to captain the side in one of seven changes. Skibbereen cousins Liam and Gavin Coombes…

THIS ISN’T THE season finale Munster hoped for but there are worse places than Parma to wrap up a campaign, with the temperature set to get close to 30°C today. Johann van Graan’s aim of his side reaching the Rainbow Cup final were quashed earlier this week as Benetton advanced, meaning this meeting with Zebre [KO 6pm Irish time, eir Sport] is a dead rubber in competitive terms. There should still be a fair degree of entertainment given the lack of pressure on both teams and the weather conditions. Van Graan might have gone for a 6/2 split of forwards and backs on the bench but it would be a…

CONOR KENNY HAS completed his move from Connacht to Newcastle Falcons and signed a two-year deal with the Premiership outfit.  The 125kg prop made 11 first team appearances for the western province, while he has also represented Ireland at U18, U19 and U20 levels.  “I’m really excited about coming over,” Kenny told the Falcons club website. “When I first spoke to Newcastle’s director of rugby Dean Richards a little while back I was very taken by where he wants the club to go, and it sounds like we have the same mind-set. “I want to play for a guy like that at a club with those values, and it always…

GAVIN COOMBES HAS been named Munster Rugby Men’s Player of the Year for the 2020/21 campaign, becoming the youngest ever winner of the award. The 23-year-old scored 15 tries in 22 appearances, the most tries ever scored by a player for Munster in one season after featuring in 22 of Munster’s 25 fixtures. Click Here: Elsewhere, Tipperary native Dorothy Wall was named Women’s Player of the Year following an excellent season with a number of top performances on the international stage. Meanwhile scrum-half Craig Casey has been named Young Player of the Year and the John McCarthy Award for Greencore Munster Rugby Academy Player of the Year went to Ben…

NEIL JENKINS, the hero of the 1997 Lions tour and now employed as their kicking coach, believes Conor Murray will be ‘a major player’ for Warren Gatland’s team in South Africa. Murray’s form has been inconsistent since the last Lions tour in 2017 but despite facing questions about his position on the Ireland team, he was one of the first names pencilled into Gatland’s squad when he announced his travelling party for the three Test series against the Springboks. Winner of 94 Test caps – five with the Lions, 89 with Ireland – Murray has a mixed record against South Africa, winning three and losing three of the six Tests…

Updated Jun 20th 2021, 4:18 PM Terry Kennedy and Greg O’Shea facing Samoa earlier. Source: Manuel Blondeau/INPHO IRELAND ARE JUST one win away from qualifying for this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo after a comprehensive semi-final win at the World Rugby Sevens repechage in Monaco. Click Here: Anthony Eddy’s side beat Hong Kong 28-5 in the last four, having topped their pool with a 100% win record. Two Jordan Conroy tries and one from Foster Horan powered Ireland into a commanding half-time lead, before Harry McNulty added a fourth early into the second period to put Hong Kong to the sword, and the result beyond doubt. France won the earlier semi-final…

source: TMZ John Cena is fully involved … fully involved with his girlfriend Shay Shariatzadeh. John and Shay could not keep their hands and lips off each other as they dined Friday night at a Tampa restaurant, Ocean Prime. They’ve been together since March … so his former GF, Nikki Bella, is far, far away in his rear view. They broke up almost exactly a year ago. You’ll recall, there was a thing over babies … she wanted one, he didn’t, he changed his mind, she wasn’t moved by that, etc. etc. BTW … Shay is Canadian. She works as a product manager for a tech company in Vancouver. If…

source: mlw.com It is with great honor that Major League Wrestling partners with Pro Wrestling NOAH to form an alliance. This all-encompassing partnership will feature athletes exchanged between the two organizations as well as opportunities to share content in addition to other opportunities. The partnership will commence with an MLW wrestler participating in the 2019 N-1 Victory tour that commences this August. The wrestler will be revealed at a later date. “Pro Wrestling NOAH has a rich history of promoting some of the grandest wrestling bouts in the history of the sport,” said MLW CEO and Founder Court Bauer. “This is a very exciting partnership. We look forward to joining…