Welsh rugby to lose one of its four regions in the next three years

The number of professional men’s rugby teams in Wales is to be cut from four to three within the next three years. The Welsh Rugby Union had been pushing for a two-team solution but, after a period of consultation, has now announced there will be funding for only three pro sides in the future.The four existing regions – Cardiff, Scarlets, Ospreys and Dragons – will remain for the moment but are to be reduced to three by 2028, with teams based in the capital city, east Wales and west Wales. It means there will be insufficient room for both the Scarlets – formerly Llanelli – and the Swansea-based Ospreys who could now come under pressure to merge. If a merger proves impossible – highly likely with so much history and rivalry involved – a “fair and transparent” tender process would decide the outcome

Dan Skelton out of traps fast in trainers’ title battle with Cheltenham double

The feature race had a finish worthy of the festival itself here on Friday, as Harry Skelton summoned a final lunge for the line from Fortune De Mer in the Grade Two novice hurdle and edged out Doctor Blue by a short-head. “He’s a quirky sort,” Dan Skelton, the winner’s trainer, said afterwards, “but he’s got plenty of ability, and that’s an 80 grand race, so we won’t worry about the next one too quickly.”Skelton already has the County Hurdle at the festival meeting here in March as a long-term target for Friday’s winner – “it would really suit him, lots of runners and smuggling him around in a race like that” – while the £48k first prize was supplemented by a further £52k for his prize money total when Calico took the feature handicap chase later on the card.That was more than enough to extend Skelton’s lead at the top of the trainers’ table after Olly Murphy, currently his closest rival, had taken the novice chase with Alnilam earlier on the card, and he is currently odds-on to win the championship for the first time when the season concludes in April.Having seen the prize snatched away by Willie Mullins’s familiar springtime surge in each of the past two campaigns, however, he will take nothing for granted until the final penny has been counted

Your Guardian sport weekend: rugby league Ashes, Lionesses v Brazil and F1’s title tussle

Dominic Booth helms our essential gateway to the day’s football action. He will be looking forward to Saturday’s four Premier League fixtures – Chelsea v Sunderland, Newcastle v Fulham, Manchester United v Brighton and Brentford v Liverpool. There’s also the prospect of the Lionesses hosting Brazil at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium as well as Wales Women facing Australia in Cardiff. There’ll be team news and breaking stories as well as any wash-up from Friday night’s Leeds v West Ham match.England’s head coach, Shaun Wane, has been waiting five years for a “smash-up” with Australia and is relishing the role of underdogs in the first of three long-awaited Tests

England in Women’s World Cup semi-finals but questions remain for Charlotte Edwards

It’s official: Sunday’s World Cup match between England and New Zealand will be Sophie Devine’s last one-day international. After their loss against India on Thursday, New Zealand can no longer qualify for the semi-finals: the 36-year-old Devine, who made her international debut in 2006 and has represented her country for more than half her life, will not be signing off with another world title.She still has the chance to finish with a win, though. The New Zealand captain has already scored 266 runs in the tournament, including a century against Australia, so it could be a fierce tussle against England’s attack – and an emotional one. Expect to see tears come the anthems, as well as blood and sweat in the sweltering humidity of Visakhapatnam

In an affluent and crowded T20 market how is the BBL supposed to compete? | Jack Snape

The BBL may have been born near the start of Twenty20 era, but ahead of its 15th season growing pains have set in. Cricket Australia wants to tap private funding to help Australia’s men’s and women’s competitions keep pace in franchise cricket’s crowded landscape. But as the BBL rubs up against well-heeled upstarts in the sport’s increasingly unstable calendar, its true worth can be difficult to assess.Few are better placed to do so than Venky Harinarayan, the Indian-born, Silicon Valley investor, who is a leading name in San Francisco’s venture capital scene. In the sport he loves, he established his home town’s franchise the Unicorns in 2023 with co-owner Anand Rajaraman, and made headlines when he signed Pat Cummins in a pioneering four-year deal that gave Major League Cricket [MLC] legitimacy

England’s Shaun Wane banks on experience as rugby league’s Ashes ends 22-year hiatus

It has been a long time between drinks – 22 years to be exact. The Ashes were last staged in 2003, meaning more than two decades have elapsed without international rugby league’s greatest rivalry, a wait which finally ends on Saturday at Wembley. For Shaun Wane, the wait must have felt like an eternity.If you were fortunate enough to be there when Wane was appointed as England coach in February 2020, it is easy to remember that he could not hide his delight that his first assignment was an Ashes series that autumn. Of course, within weeks the world had ground to a halt due to Covid-19 and the chance of taking on Australia on home soil disappeared