分类： sports

AFL side Hawthorn Football Club still holds a high-impact returning talent in promising young gun Will Day, but club leaders have made clear they will not cut corners on his recovery to rush him back to the top-tier lineup before he is fully ready. After a frustrating two-and-a-half years marked by repeated injury setbacks, Day is on track to make his comeback through the Victorian Football League (VFL) on restricted minutes, before earning a call-up to the senior AFL side.

Day’s career has been plagued by bad luck with injuries over recent seasons: the young talent has featured in just six senior AFL matches across the last two campaigns. His most recent setback, a shoulder injury sustained during pre-season training, has forced him to sit out the entirety of Hawthorn’s strong start to the 2024 season, where the club has notched four wins from its opening five matches. However, the club confirmed Day turned in an impressive, fully cleared training session on Thursday, and is projected to be available for senior selection within a five-week window.

Hawthorn head coach Sam Mitchell told reporters he is encouraged by Day’s steady recovery progress, but remains firm on sticking to a slow, conservative rehabilitation plan to avoid re-injury. “I think he’ll come back through the VFL. I think he’ll play reasonably limited game time in his first game back whenever that is, I couldn’t put an exact date on it,” Mitchell explained. “When he gets back, I suspect he will play at least one game with limited game time through the VFL and we’ll make assessments from there. He’s still a period away, even though, I must admit I watch him train and am thinking, ‘Are you sure it has to be that long?’ But you just trust the medical staff, they do a great job for us. I am looking forward to getting him back but it won’t be soon.”

During Thursday’s training session, Day completed controlled light tackling drills as his teammates prepared for this weekend’s match against Port Adelaide at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium. When asked whether the club would ask Day to adjust his playing technique to reduce future injury risk, Mitchell pushed back on that idea, noting that the majority of Day’s past injuries have not been contact-related, and the current tackling drills are only part of gradual contact conditioning, not a technical overhaul.

“The majority of his injuries haven’t been impact, he’s obviously had the stuff with his feet which have been the majority of his stuff,” Mitchell said. “He’s only had the two physical hit injuries, one was from Jai Newcombe of all people, and then the one at training. So technique wise he’s quite good. I think as they build back the training, you obviously build them back physically with running, weights, but you also have to build back contact. They’ll build back his contact tolerance, he’ll do controlled tackling because the worst thing you can do is no tackling and then ‘OK, play footy.’ It’s not that we’re changing his technique too much, it’s just that we’re slowly getting him used to contact before he comes back.”

The National Rugby League is facing growing backlash over a controversial off-season rule overhaul, with one of the code’s most respected veteran coaches becoming the latest high-profile voice to condemn the change, arguing it has eroded the sport’s core identity.

Ricky Stuart, head coach of the Canberra Raiders, once supported the NRL’s updated ‘six again’ rule interpretation, which was introduced during the 2024 off-season. Under the new regulation, referees award attacking teams an immediate set restart instead of a traditional penalty for ruck infringements or offside offences committed outside the 20-metre line. The rule was framed as a way to cut down on match stoppages and speed up overall gameplay, but it has sparked fierce pushback from fans and insiders alike.

Stuart, who has led Canberra for more than a decade, said his initial optimism about the change has faded, as the rule has had unintended negative consequences that have hurt the quality of on-field product. Speaking ahead of the Raiders’ blockbuster Friday night home match against a Melbourne Storm side that has dropped four consecutive matches, Stuart said the league has lost the fundamental fabric of the sport that long-time fans love.

“I was a fan of the six again, but I think we’ve lost the fabric of the game,” Stuart told reporters, aligning himself with thousands of fans who have voiced criticism of the rule on social media. “Six agains are just given now willy-nilly. There’s a free six again wave of the arm because there’s no repercussion on the decision right at the time. For me, a six again is something that has got to be penalty worthy, but I don’t think it is at the moment which is why we’re getting so much criticism with the speed of the game. Making the game faster doesn’t necessarily make it more attractive. Just because the scoreline is 50-30, I don’t believe it’s more attractive.”

Proponents of the rule argue it has created more attacking opportunities and higher overall scores, which they claim makes matches more exciting for viewers. But critics, including Stuart, point out that the change has led to massively lopsided scorelines and forced defending teams to endure dozens of consecutive tackles, leading to excessive player fatigue late in matches that threatens both competitive balance and athlete welfare. While some top teams have adapted quickly and thrived under the new regulations, others have struggled to adjust to the relentless pace of play.

Beyond the rule debate, Stuart confirmed a series of reshuffles to his Raiders starting side for this week’s clash, highlighted by a young winger’s personal request to step back to reserve grade. Twenty-one-year-old Savelio Tamale, who is in just his second full season of first-grade NRL, asked to drop down a level to rebuild his confidence after an unusual moment in last week’s match against South Sydney Rabbitohs in Perth. Video footage showed Tamale appearing to slow to a stop just centimetres from the try line before eventually grounding the ball for a five-pointer, a moment that sparked widespread discussion online.

Stuart moved to shut down speculation around the incident, saying it is simply a matter of a young player working through a confidence slump, a challenge Tamale previously navigated last year following an injury spell. “He’s just down on confidence,” Stuart explained. “We don’t need to make it too big a story internally, because for us, we’ve just got to look after a young player who is lacking a bit of confidence. The same thing happened to him last year when he came back from injury. He’ll get through it. Outside of him being a talented footballer, he’s a really good bloke so he’ll get through it because he’s got good people around him and we’ll take care of him.”

Tamale’s move to reserve grade has opened up a spot in the starting line-up, forcing a positional reshuffle: Seb Kris will shift from centre to left wing, allowing Matt Timoko to return to the starting side at centre for the first time in 2024. Timoko lost his starting spot to Simi Sasagi earlier in the season after an injury-interrupted off-season kept him out of match practice, and his stint in reserve grade sparked widespread speculation that he could seek a move away from Canberra before his current contract expires.

Stuart was quick to dismiss those rumours, saying Timoko has acted with the utmost professionalism throughout his spell out of the starting side and remains a key part of the Raiders’ long-term plans. The coach added that Timoko, one of the NRL’s most talented attacking centres, only needed more time in reserve grade to work on his defensive fundamentals, and that he has no intention of leaving the club.

“Matty has been amazing how he’s sat back and just kept working hard because he knows how well Simi has been playing,” Stuart said. “Even Matty said to me two weeks ago when I sat down and had a chat with him, ‘Mate, it’s hard at the moment because we’ve got Simi playing so well’, and he was fine with it and totally got it. He went back and kept working hard on his football and now he’s back in the team. He’s a club person so I know he’s excited and he’s ready to play. He’s here next year. That happens at any club when a first-grader comes back from injury and isn’t playing first grade or is put back to Cup to fix his game. All of a sudden there’s innuendo about the player being disgruntled or wants out. Matty’s not disgruntled and he doesn’t want out, and he hasn’t come and seen me. I’ve had good conversations with his manager so everything is OK from our point of view.”

Friday’s match between the 2-win Raiders and 2-win Storm shapes as a critical turning point for both sides, who are desperate to reverse their poor early-season form and climb up the NRL ladder.

The National Rugby League’s polarizing disrupter rule has sparked weeks of fierce backlash after a string of widely criticized officiating calls — but one of the code’s most respected star players has broken with popular opinion to offer rare public support for the controversial regulation.

Sydney Roosters skipper James Tedesco has stepped forward to defend the rule, just days after the NRL publicly admitted officials misapplied it during a high-stakes weekend clash between his side and the Cronulla Sharks, a mistake that cost the Roosters a guaranteed try. The incorrect call came when match officials ruled Roosters forward Robert Toia had illegally disrupted Sharks winger Sam Stonestreet as Stonestreet attempted to catch a high kick, adjudging Toia’s contact enough to invalidate what would have been a Roosters try. Post-match review confirmed the contact was minimal and the ruling wrong, yet the NRL has confirmed it has no plans to scrap the rule despite growing outcry from fans, coaches and players.

Luckily for the Roosters, the officiating error did not shift the final result: the Sharks scored a try of their own just a minute after the disallowed Roosters four-pointer, but Trent Robinson’s side held on to secure the win. Speaking at a promotional event for Greyhound National Adoption Day on Thursday, Tedesco said he believed the core purpose of the rule — which is designed to protect players jumping to catch high kicks — is sound, and that most confusion stems from inconsistent application rather than a flaw in the rule itself.

“I think I understand it,” Tedesco said alongside Parramatta Eels star Mitch Moses at the launch event. “I thought there was nothing wrong with that challenge on the weekend but they thought it was, and now they’ve said they got it wrong. So as long as it’s clear going forward and consistent with the calls, then I’ll be happy.”

Tedesco went on to break down his reading of the rule, explaining that it properly targets dangerous, unawares contact rather than fair contests between two players both focused on the ball. “The main thing it brought in was to protect the catcher. If there’s contact before the ball is coming down and (the offender) weren’t looking at the ball, then that’s a penalty, that’s a disrupter. Whereas two guys looking at the ball competing for the ball is always going to be contact.”

The Roosters fullback added that the rule does not change his own approach to aerial contests, noting that he keeps his eyes on the ball on both attack and defense, a habit that aligns with the rule’s core intent. “Let’s hope there’s consistency going forward and it’s all cleared up, because you don’t want them coming out after the game saying that was wrong and it costs us a try,” he said.

Off the field, Tedesco also shared his thoughts on this weekend’s upcoming clash, where the third-placed Roosters will host the resurgent Newcastle Knights at Allianz Stadium on Sunday. The Knights have been one of the NRL’s biggest surprise packages in the 2026 season, transforming from having the league’s worst attack in 2025 to a top-performing offensive unit under new head coach Justin Holbrook — a man who served as an assistant coach at the Roosters over the past two years before taking the Knights top job.

Holbrook’s return to a head coaching role comes three years after he was sacked by the Gold Coast Titans in 2023, and Tedesco said he is thrilled to see his former mentor finding success in his new role. “We’ve had chats over the years, obviously it was pretty difficult for him going in there (to the Titans) and the sort of situation he was in. So I definitely felt bad for him in that way,” Tedesco said. “I was very happy for him that he landed with us (as an assistant). He’s a very high energy guy, very positive, and definitely brought out some of my best attacking footy as well. So I’m very happy for him to get another chance up there and to see them doing really well even with injuries to key players.”

Despite his personal respect for Holbrook, Tedesco made clear that any goodwill will be put aside when the two sides run out on Sunday. “But there’ll be no feelings from playing on the weekend, we really want to go after a win and if that’s going to affect Justo, then that’s just how it is.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has issued a definitive confirmation that Iran will compete in the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, pushing back against growing speculation that the nation’s participation would be derailed by ongoing armed conflict in the Middle East. Speaking Wednesday at an economic conference hosted by business broadcaster CNBC in Washington D.C., Infantino left no room for ambiguity about Iran’s spot in the global tournament. “Iran is coming for sure. We hope that by then the situation will be a peaceful situation, that would definitely help,” Infantino told attendees.

In justifying the governing body’s position, Infantino emphasized that national teams represent their civilian populations rather than political leadership, noting that the Iranian squad earned their qualification through standard tournament pathways and that the players themselves have expressed overwhelming desire to compete. This stance marks a repetition of commitments Infantino made back in March, when he appeared in person at an Iran-Costa Rica friendly match held in Antalya, Turkey. That appearance came even after former U.S. President Donald Trump publicly questioned whether Iranian athletes would be able to compete safely on U.S. soil during the tournament.

The 2026 World Cup, a historic edition as the first to expand to 48 participating teams, is co-hosted by three North American nations: the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Iran was drawn into Group G, with all three of its scheduled group-stage matches set to take place across U.S. venues — two contests in Los Angeles, one in Seattle — with the team planning to base its training camp in Tucson, Arizona. Iran’s participation has faced uncertainty since large-scale conflict broke out across the Middle East involving the U.S., Israel and Iran in late February.

Initially, Iranian officials raised the possibility of a full boycott of the tournament, before formally requesting FIFA relocate its U.S.-hosted matches to Mexico, a petition that global soccer’s governing body rejected outright. After weeks of cross-border air strikes and Iranian retaliatory attacks targeting Israel and regional partners, a fragile ceasefire took effect on April 8. Tensions remain high, however: Tehran has restricted access to the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, and since Monday the U.S. has enforced a full naval blockade on all vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports.

Sticking to FIFA’s long-standing position that sport should remain separate from political tensions, Infantino reaffirmed the organization’s commitment to using soccer as a unifying force. “If there’s nobody else that believes in building bridges and keeping them intact and together, we are doing the job,” he said. The 2026 World Cup is scheduled to kick off on June 11, bringing 48 teams together across 16 host cities in the three co-host nations.

The Melbourne Storm’s NRL season has hit a dramatic rough patch, and a surprise guest appearance at the club’s recent training session has brought a mix of hope and uncertainty to the embattled outfit. Veteran Fijian prop Tui Kamikamica, who has not played since the club’s round four away match in Townsville, showed up unannounced to watch his teammates train this week, months after a life-altering suspected stroke that forced him to immediately step away from the sport.

Kamikamica was discharged from hospital following the medical incident earlier this year, but he has not been cleared to join any on-field training with the squad, and no timeline has been set for his eventual return to the NRL. His presence on the training sidelines ahead of Friday’s do-or-die clash against the Canberra Raiders is more about morale than a comeback, according to long-time Storm head coach Craig Bellamy.

Bellamy explained that he hopes the sight of Kamikamica recovering well after such a severe health scare will give his struggling side a much-needed emotional boost. The Storm have dropped four consecutive matches, a slump that has sparked widespread public debate about whether the club’s 20-year run of consistent dominance at the top of the NRL is finally coming to an end. After opening the 2025 season with blistering, lopsided wins over the Parramatta Eels and St George Illawarra Dragons, the Storm’s attack has stagnated, and their defense has leaked tries at a rate that has caught even seasoned observers off guard. Last week, the team suffered a humiliating home defeat to the New Zealand Warriors, where the Storm was outmuscled and overpowered in front of their own fanbase.

Beyond Kamikamica’s absence, the Storm has been crippled by key forward departures and injuries that have gutted their traditional physical edge in the middle of the field. Star big man Nelson Asofa-Solomona left the club and retired from rugby league entirely in the off-season, while elite edge forward Eli Katoa was ruled out of the entire 2026 season after suffering repeated concussions. The club has been forced to shift rookie Cooper Clarke out of his natural position to cover the gap, but there is some positive injury news on the horizon: forward Shawn Blore is in line to make his return from a foot injury for the Canberra away game.

Addressing the ongoing lack of size in his forward pack, Bellamy said the team has no choice but to adapt to the hand they have been dealt. “It’d probably be handy to have another big body, but we haven’t got it so we have to go with what we’ve got and work out what we need to do well,” the coach said. Speaking about Kamikamica’s return to the club, he added: “He has been through a really tough time. To see him back looking as good as he looks is good. He’s still got a little way to go, but it’s great to see him back. Hopefully having him back here for the training session can lift the boys’ spirits a little bit. We’re probably down on that a little bit, but hopefully that will give us a bit of a lift.”

Heading into Friday’s match, the Storm faces a steep challenge against a Raiders side that is coming off a thrilling upset win in Perth. Bellamy acknowledged that his side has produced inconsistent performances through the first half of the season, pointing to a string of injury disruptions and off-field upheaval as contributing factors to the current slump. “You don’t look back too much, you look forward and hopefully work out where we need to improve and get better,” he said. “We train for that and hopefully we do that. We’ve had a few disruptions with injuries and a few other things that happened off the field, so it’s been a bit of a tough time with that. On the field, we’ve been good in patches but then not so good in other patches so we need to be a bit more consistent.”

Despite the team’s struggles, there are bright spots for the Storm’s future. Fullback Sua Fa’alogo, a homegrown club product, has emerged as a consistent standout performer through the slump. And another young Victorian talent could make his NRL debut on Friday: exciting young prospect Hugo Peel, who recently scored a hat-trick in the NSW Cup, has been named to the Storm’s extended 20-man bench. Bellamy praised Peel’s work ethic and fitness, noting that while the NRL’s current substitution rules only allow four interchange players to take the field from a six-man bench, the young forward has earned his call-up through his reserve grade form. “He’s great in the effort areas. He’s fit as and he just wants to be involved in the game,” Bellamy said. “With how the system works these days, you’ve got six on the bench but can only use four, so whether he gets a run or not, that’s another thing. It’d be good for him to get his debut because he certainly deserves it with the effort he’s put in in reserve grade.”

As Parramatta Eels captain Mitchell Moses navigates the toughest leadership test of his professional rugby league career, a potential mid-season addition of star forward Jaydn Su’A sits firmly on the back burner, with an unprecedented injury crisis taking every ounce of his focus.

Speaking at an event launching Greyhound National Adoption Day alongside Sydney Roosters captain James Tedesco in central Sydney, Moses opened up about the unprecedented challenges his side has faced through the opening six rounds of the NRL season. The Eels are coming off a demoralizing 52-point defeat to the Gold Coast Titans, a result that saw the under-strength side booed off the field by frustrated fans at full-time. But Moses made clear the club has a valid explanation for its poor form: an injury toll that has gutted the playing roster unlike anything he has experienced in his career.

Three key first-team players – J’maine Hopgood, Bailey Simonsson and Matt Doorey – have already been ruled out for the entire 2024 season. For this weekend’s clash against the Canterbury Bulldogs, the list of unavailable talent grows even longer, with rising stars Jonah Pezet and Isaiah Iongi among the multitude of sidelined players. This has forced the Eels to field a roster heavy with inexperienced rookies, who are still learning the ropes of top-flight NRL football.

That youth-driven lineup has forced a shift in Moses’ approach to on-field leadership. Known for wearing his heart on his sleeve and not holding back when challenging teammates, the captain said he has had to rein in his outward frustration to avoid undermining the young players getting their first opportunities at the top level. “That’s the core challenge I’m facing right now as skipper – I’ve never encountered anything like this, even before I took the captaincy,” Moses explained. “I’ve never been part of a team that’s been hit this hard by injuries. It’s already unprecedented, but add the captaincy on top, and you have to figure out how to lead the right way. With all these young kids coming in, you don’t want to lose your temper and let that negativity filter through the group. I’m taking lessons from how I’ve led in the past and working to get better at this.”

The brutal 52-point defeat exposed major flaws in Parramatta’s defensive structure, with the side conceding a massive 226 points across the first six rounds of the season. A tough post-match video review only confirmed how far below the club’s standard the performance was. “To be honest, it was really tough to sit through that review,” Moses admitted. “It didn’t feel like us, as a team or as a club. This isn’t one person’s fault – it’s on all of us, and we all have to step up to fix this. This week’s match against the Bulldogs isn’t going to get any easier, either. There were moments in the Titans game where we could have clawed our way back into contention, and we failed to take those chances. We have to do better.”

A mainstay of the New South Wales Blues Origin squad for several years, Moses has been a consistent standout for the state side. But right now, he said, even thinking about Origin selection is impossible – every bit of his energy is focused on righting the ship at Parramatta. “My full attention is on this club right now, it’s the only thing I can focus on,” he said. “I’ve never been through anything like this injury crisis in my career, and as captain, I’m actually excited for the challenge of pulling us out of this slump. We’re not hiding from how bad the last performance was. We weren’t happy with it, we don’t want to see that again, and we’re going to step straight into the pressure to fix it.”

With the injury crisis mounting, speculation has grown that the Eels will look to the mid-season transfer market to bolster their thin roster. The most high-profile name linked with a move to the club is St George Illawarra Dragons forward Jaydn Su’A, who has already confirmed he will leave the Red V at the end of his contract, with a 2027 move to Parramatta already widely reported. Moses made clear he would jump at the chance to add a player of Su’A’s quality to the Eels’ right edge immediately, but stressed that any transfer deal is out of his hands as he focuses on leading the injury-hit side. “There’s no point hiding how bad our injury situation is right now,” Moses said. “If the club’s recruitment team decides bringing in someone like Su’A is the best move for us, I fully support whatever they think is the right fit for this team. When you talk about Su’A, any club would jump at the chance to add a player of his calibre. I’d love to have him here, but this decision isn’t up to me.”

As swirling rumors of imminent Saudi Arabian funding withdrawal sparked fears of an imminent collapse for the breakaway LIV Golf tour, league executives moved swiftly this Wednesday to reassure players and staff that operations and funding remain fully intact. The Saudi-backed circuit has roiled global men’s professional golf since its controversial 2022 launch, when it lured dozens of the sport’s top stars away from the established PGA Tour and DP World Tour with nine-figure guaranteed contracts that split the golf community.

Over the past week, speculation has grown that Saudi Arabia’s deep-pocketed backers, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, have grown weary of the high-cost venture. To date, the project is estimated to have cost PIF more than $5 billion, with no path to near-term profitability. Multiple major outlets including the *Financial Times*, *New York Times*, and *Wall Street Journal* all reported this Wednesday, citing unnamed anonymous sources, that PIF’s exit from the tour was imminent.

But in an internal email to all players and staff obtained by Agence France-Presse, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil sought to quash the uncertainty. “I want to be crystal clear: Our season continues exactly as planned, uninterrupted and at full throttle,” O’Neil wrote. The executive’s statement came as players gathered in Mexico City ahead of the tour’s upcoming event at Club de Golf Chapultepec, where organizers have doubled down on maintaining a business-as-usual posture. Tour officials published first-round tee times on schedule as planned, and even leaned into humor to address the speculation on social media. “Slow news day? We are ON,” read one social post, paired with a graphic reading “BREAKING NEWS. TUNE IN TOMORROW” alongside the tournament’s full starting schedule.

Unnamed sources close to LIV Golf’s operations also pushed back on the exit rumors to AFP, noting that the tour projects its revenue will double between 2024 and 2025, and pointing to record-breaking spectator turnouts at recent events held in Australia and South Africa. Still, questions remain: the *Telegraph* of London reported that top LIV Golf executives were summoned to a New York meeting this week to discuss contingency plans for a potential PIF withdrawal.

The speculation comes on the same day PIF unveiled a new five-year strategic plan that will restructure the fund’s global investment portfolio, an announcement that comes against a backdrop of rising geopolitical instability across the Middle East. The region has faced escalating security risks following a wave of Iranian strikes on military, energy, and transportation infrastructure that came after a joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iranian targets in late February. Even before the current outbreak of conflict, Saudi Arabia’s domestic economic reform agenda faced pressure, as years of sustained low global oil prices have cut into government revenues.

Signs of internal instability have already emerged on LIV Golf’s player roster. Two high-profile golfers, five-time major champion Brooks Koepka and 2018 Masters winner Patrick Reed, have recently left the breakaway tour to secure a return to the PGA Tour. For the hundreds of remaining players still under LIV contract, the full implications of a potential PIF exit remain unclear. Speaking to reporters in Mexico City, LIV veteran and 2017 Masters champion Sergio Garcia noted that players have received no official communication of any funding shift. “We haven’t heard anything” since the start of the year, Garcia said, when PIF governor Yasir al-Rumayyan reassured golfers that the fund remained committed to the circuit as a long-term project.

In his Wednesday email, O’Neil did not directly refute the claims of an impending Saudi withdrawal, instead framing the current speculation as a growing pain common to new disruptive ventures. “The life of a startup movement is often defined by these moments of pressure,” he wrote. “We signed up for this because we believe in disrupting the status quo. We are pioneers, and while the road isn’t always smooth, the destination is worth every mile.”