Rugby World Rankings

Covid-hit Munster add 22 young players to their European Champions Cup squad in the build-up to Sunday’s opener against Wasps.

Having set up Head For Change the former Wales flanker, who is living with early onset dementia, is helping others using group exerciseIt has been about 18 months since Alix Popham got his diagnosis, and a year since he spoke about it in public. He’s doing well. Popham, who played 33 Tests for Wales, takes life the same way he played rugby: head on. In that time he has helped to launch a lobby group, Progressive Rugby, who have pulled together experts from across the sport to find ways to make it safer, and he has also set up a foundation, Head For Change, to provide support to athletes, and families of athletes, who are, like him and his, living with early onset dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or other degenerative brain diseases caused by sport.It helps to keep busy. He has started competing in triathlons, and plans to do an Iron Man next year, even though the shoulder injuries he sustained in his career mean he can only swim breaststroke “so I’m at the back with all the older people”. And it helps to stay positive. When our talk becomes maudlin he and his wife, Mel, catch themselves and turn the conversation on to something more optimistic. “Both of us are glass half-full people.” Hope copes. They have faith that there are things they can do to mitigate the worst effects, and faith, too, that they can force the sport to do more to help other players suffering from them. Continue reading…

Gloucester centre Mark Atkinson signs a new “multi-year” deal with the Premiership side.

Struggling Bath sign former Scarlets wing Tom Prydie on a short-term deal and Edinburgh centre Jordan Venter on a contract until the end of next season.

England’s Simon Middleton becomes the first women’s team coach to win World Rugby Coach of the Year.