AFLW clubs’ lack of ambition laid bare by 2025 grand final deja vu | Jack Snape

North Melbourne against Brisbane, take three. Over 116 matches of AFLW in 2025, the competition has delivered the same grand finalists for the third straight year. And few, apart from Melbourne fans, would disagree that Saturday night’s sold-out clash is a fitting conclusion to the 10th season of elite women’s footy.But the consistent brilliance of the Lions and Kangaroos has also highlighted a lack of ambition from other AFLW clubs, whose failure to even spend what they are allowed to on coaches is an open secret in the competition.The Kangaroos enter their third straight grand final on Saturday and are unbeaten in two years

Geraint Thomas lands new Ineos role as struggling team make major reshuffle

Geraint Thomas has been appointed as the new director of racing at Ineos Grenadiers, a few weeks after retiring from competition at this year’s Tour of Britain. “This team has been my home since day one, and stepping into this role feels like a natural next step,” Thomas said.The move by Thomas, who won the Tour de France in 2018, has been long-expected and comes after a major management reshuffle at Ineos Grenadiers, under which the sports directors Zak Dempster and Oli Cookson moved to the revamped Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team.According to Ineos, Thomas’s newly created leadership role will see him working closely with Ineos’s head of sport, Dave Brailsford, and performance director, Scott Drawer, “providing crucial input into race strategy, rider recruitment, development and race readiness”.Thomas, who last finished on a Grand Tour podium at the 2024 Giro d’Italia when he placed third to Tadej Pogacar, rode this year’s Tour de France and has a blend of stage racing and one-day racing experience

The Super Bowl Shuffle at 40: how a goofy rap classic boosted the Bears’ title run

A new documentary charts how a song that featured a 335lb rapper and bad dancing went viral in the pre-internet era The Chicago Bears are 8-3 and soaring in this season’s NFL standings. For a fanbase that’s grown accustomed to looking up at the division rival Green Bay Packers and looking ahead to the next season’s prospects, it’s reason to smell the roses and indulge in some light strutting. But even as fans find themselves looking forward to the Bears’ first playoff berth in five years, something that once seemed unthinkable with a second-year quarterback and a rookie head coaching helming a squad that managed only five wins last year, no fan is thinking the 2025 Bears have a Super Bowl run in them – not without a rap song to lay the marker down.Before the 1985 edition of the Bears romped to victory in Super Bowl XX, they tempted fate by recording The Super Bowl Shuffle. Although the song only peaked at 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the accompanying video came to rival Michael Jackson’s Thriller for popularity as it popped up endlessly on TV during the Bears’ title run

England plan extra training sessions in wake of howling first Ashes Test defeat

A week of inactivity for England’s cricketers will end on Saturday following confirmation of additional training sessions having been scheduled in the wake of their howling eight-wicket defeat to Australia in the first Ashes Test.As reported by the Guardian on Monday, head coach Brendon McCullum has booked extra time in the nets ahead of the day-night second Test that starts in Brisbane on 4 December rather than send any first team players to the two-day England Lions match in Canberra this weekend.The first session takes place at Allan Border Field on Saturday morning, before switching to the facilities at the Gabba from Sunday onwards. Two of the sessions – Monday and Wednesday – will take place after dark so players can get used to seeing the pink Kookaburra ball under lights.It represents a break from England’s usual pattern of training three days before a Test match

Molly McCann: ‘I’m a scouse female gay athlete who supports Everton – it’s like my cards are marked already’

Britain’s most successful female UFC fighter on knowing when to stand her ground, why she won’t box in Saudi Arabia and aiming to win a world title in the next year“I give my hidings and I take my hidings and so they have seen me with snapped ligaments in my knee, broken feet, broken toes, broken hands, stitches, broken legs,” Molly McCann says of the damage she has endured as a fighter and the impact it has had on her mum and her partner, Fran Parman. “It’s traumatic for Fran and even more traumatic for my mum. I’m 35 and I’ve been in the gym since I was 12. I had my first fight at 16. I’ve spent most of my life fighting

Players warned not to sign IPL-style Hundred deals in standoff with owners

The Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) has advised players not to sign Hundred contracts for next season amid a dispute with the new franchise owners over their terms.In a supplementary process to the new Indian Premier League-style auction that will take place next year, Hundred teams are permitted to make four direct signings, including one from their existing squad and three others, either overseas players or a player with an England central contract.The direct-signing window opened last week, but the players’ union is understood to have told its members to hold off signing because of a standoff over the new multiyear contracts.The Guardian has learned that the new franchise owners – four of whom also own Indian Premier League teams – have included a unilateral 12-month release clause in the three-year deals they are offering to direct signings, which the PCA is contesting. Such contracts would offer no security to the players, as well as keeping them on the same salary for three years even if they enjoyed a stellar first season