The Waratahs confirmed on Wednesday the appointment of Michael Cheika as head coach, twelve years after the Super Rugby title he won with them. The 59-year-old Australian will take up the role in November, signed for the 2027 season with an option for 2028. He must first lead Lebanon at the Rugby League World Cup.
Vannes return to the top flight with the oldest average age in the Top 14, 28.5, while Clermont field the youngest group at 26.3. Between the league's oldest player, Benjamín Urdapilleta, and its youngest, Pau's Joachim Senga, the gap is more than twenty-one years.
On Saturday at Ellis Park, South Africa and New Zealand begin a four-Test series, a format not seen for twenty years. Rassie Erasmus has pushed back his team announcement to Thursday, something he had not done this year. Across the way, Dave Rennie has already sent four players home and is monitoring four more.
Leone Nakarawa has signed with the Fijian Drua, thirteen years after leaving Fiji for Europe. The 38-year-old lock leaves behind 145 Top 14 matches and 26 tries, spread across Racing 92, Toulon and Castres. His final season at Castres amounted to just five league appearances.
Tasman wing Kyren Taumoefolau scored five tries as his side won 50-35 away to Counties Manukau on Sunday. The match log puts the first in the 19th minute and the fifth in the 50th: thirty-one minutes of play, five tries. He now has eight after three rounds of the NPC.
A week before the Pro D2 kicks off, Béziers are making progress on three deals. New Zealand prop Maka Mafileo has arrived and signed for two seasons, La Rochelle's Georgia international hooker Nika Sutidze is reportedly due on loan, and scrum-half Andrea Lucchini, released by Agen, is said to have agreed terms.
The Top 14 returns on 5 September and Vannes will be the only promoted side, a year after going down. The Breton club comes back with a Pro D2 title, thirteen new signings and a well-known statistic: since 2005, sixteen of thirty-three promoted sides have stayed up, and five of fourteen since 2015. Three clubs have succeeded at the second attempt after failing first time round.
Held back by injuries, Xavier Mignot has ended his career at 32, two years before the end of his contract at Valence-Romans. Seven seasons at LOU, three at Grenoble, a spell in Louisiana and one cap in Argentina: more than two hundred matches and 53 tries.
SU Agen back-row forward Arnaud Duputs took a blow to the head two minutes from the end of Friday's pre-season game against Colomiers. At 31, he has suffered concussion after concussion for years, and said in March that another one soon would end his career.
Three games, three wins: the All Blacks thrashed the Bulls 50-19 in Pretoria, scoring eight tries and leading 24-0 at the break. Former Montpellier wing Josh Moorby and Codie Taylor both scored twice, and Anton Segner was named player of the match, seven days before the first Test against the Springboks.
Trailing Japan 17-14 in the closing minutes of the first half, the Wallabies went on to crush the Brave Blossoms 56-17 in Townsville. Six of Australia's eight tries were scored by front-rowers, and Massimo De Lutiis, the 1000th player capped by Australia, scored on debut.
Six fixtures, six storylines. Montauban conceded 63 points against Aurillac on their return, USAP snatched victory in Biarritz with an Antoine Aucagne penalty in the final minute, and Agen remain unbeaten in pre-season but lost Arnaud Duputs to another head knock.
Five fixtures are on the schedule for Friday 14 August, from Nationale to Top 14. The Landes derby between Dax and Stade Montois is the tightest of them all, 21 wins to 19 for Dax in 41 meetings. Biarritz and USAP have not met since January 2022.
Ange Capuozzo posted Stade Toulousain's best Bronco time on Tuesday, at 4 minutes 20 seconds. The test, 1,200 metres over five sets of shuttles with no rest, has become the rite of passage of pre-season. Here is the protocol, the benchmark times and what the Yo-Yo, the 30-15 IFT and MAS testing offer alongside it.
One in four players who made their Top 14 debut last season were under 20, compared with one in eleven in the early 2010s. Pro D2 tops out at one in ten and has been falling for three seasons. The shift sheds light on the overhaul of training compensation that comes into force this season.
The Top 14 and Pro D2 are dropping twelve replacements and returning to eight, as at international level. A player taken off for tactical reasons will no longer be able to return, and the load shifts onto key players: our figures count 140 who played more than twenty matches last season.
Dax host Stade Montois on Friday night at Maurice-Boyau in Mont-de-Marsan's only pre-season match. The two clubs have met 99 times in our archives, with Mont-de-Marsan ahead (54 wins to 43, with 2 draws), but Dax have won six of the last ten derbies.
FC Grenoble play their friendly against Valence-Romans on Friday night at the Parc des Sports Lesdiguières, which the first team left in 2014. The century-old ground will then be completely rebuilt as a training centre.
The top try scorer on last season's world sevens circuit, Maddison Levi has been named in a Wallaroos squad for the first time. The 24-year-old Australian could win her first fifteens cap on 22 August in Auckland, in the 100th Test in the team's history.
The RFU has named the 25 players on enhanced national contracts for 2026-2027. Five in, five out, including Tom Willis, who has left for Bordeaux, and the experienced Elliot Daly and Ollie Lawrence. A strong signal a year out from the World Cup.
