League Notes: Tasmania's Southern Huskies To Join New Zealand NBL

Tasmania's Southern Huskies will join the New Zealand National Basketball League on a five-year deal, starting in '19, as the competition's ninth team. It is a "big move" for the NZ NBL, and one that comes with "plenty of logistical consequences, though the Huskies seem to have covered most of the concerns raised by New Zealand sides." Each New Zealand team will visit Hobart to play the Huskies at least once, and the Huskies "will play every Kiwi team in New Zealand as well," playing doubleheaders each time they "cross the ditch" (NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 12/5).

Rugby Football Union interim CEO Nigel Melville is "planning to speak to Warren Gatland as part of his search for Eddie Jones’s successor as England head coach." Gatland will leave his role as Wales head coach after nearly 12 years in the job after next year’s World Cup and "is yet to announce his subsequent plans" (London GUARDIAN, 12/4).