Radical proposals to turn Premiership Rugby into a two-league conference system have been made by interim Rugby Football Union CEO Nigel Melville. The structure would involve two leagues of eight teams, which come together for a Grand Final playoff. The A League "could be scrapped and fewer games would ease the workload on players." The NFL, Super Rugby and the Pro14 already operate under a similar format and Melville said, "A conference structure with two eights would give you a true geographic spread. We have looked at it before" (London DAILY MAIL, 12/8).
The Rugby Australia board will go into a high-stakes meeting on Monday "armed with a detailed high performance review" that includes mixed player feedback on the test environment under Wallabies Manager Michael Cheika. The review, authored by High Performance Manager Ben Whitaker, was circulated to the entire board ahead of their meeting. It is understood to contain a detailed season review and a large section of player feedback (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 12/9).
The England & Wales Cricket Board issued a "very strong reminder" of the values "at the heart of the national game amid desperate efforts to rebuild the spot's standing" after the Ben Stokes saga. Players now face "strict rules around drinking and are subject to an ongoing midnight curfew after the ugly scenes outside a Bristol nightclub last year caused untold damage to the national team's global reputation" (London TELEGRAPH, 12/7).
Mercedes Formula 1 Team Principal Toto Wolff said that rule changes could give every F1 team "a chance to pull off a surprise next season." He said, "It is almost like 2009 where Brawn identified the double diffuser. I think there could be teams that have found loopholes, that others didn't spot, that could make the difference" (REUTERS, 12/7).
