The latest rugby news stories from Wales and beyond
Siya Kolisi of South Africa celebrates after winning The Rugby Championship(Image: 2025 Sebastian Frej)
Here’s your round-up of all the latest rugby news for Friday, October 17.
Wales hit by injury blow ahead of autumn
Scarlets captain Josh Macleod is set to miss out on Wales’ autumn campaign, with an pectoral muscle injury to keep him out until next month.
Steve Tandy names his first Wales squad next week, with Macleod having started both of Wales’ Tests in Japan on the openside. However, a muscle injury has kept him out since the Scarlets’ opening match of the season against Munster – with head coach Dwayne Peel confirming that he is unlikely to be available until late November.
Tandy is already without the likes of Teddy Williams, Mason Grady and Christ Tshiunza, while Louis Rees-Zammit is facing a race against time.
“Josh is not going to play for us in the next two weeks,” said Peel, with the Scarlets skipper having not travelled to South Africa for the remaining two fixtures of their opening URC block.
“I know the Wales squad is announced next week but I don’t know what Steve is thinking around Josh.”Peel added: “He’ll be fit sometime in November. I don’t know exactly when but we’re expecting to him available for our first games after that period.”
Macleod has endured awful luck with injury since winning his first Wales cap back in 2022.
The back-row had been named in a Wales squad in 2020, only to pull out through injury. He was then named to face Scotland in 2021, only to rupture his Achilles tendon.
The autumn of 2022 saw him win his first two caps, with Macleod adding to them this summer with starts in Japan.
Rugby Championship axed next year for ‘generational’ tour
The Rugby Championship will not be played next year after it was officially announced South Africa and New Zealand will face off in a Test series for the first time in 30 years.
The southern hemisphere’s leading international competition has been mothballed for a season to create space for theAll Blacks to tour South Africa in a series billed as “the Greatest Rivalry’.
New Zealand will also play URC sides the Stormers, Sharks, Bulls and Lions alongside their four-Test series against the Springboks.
“This is going to be something huge and something this generation will never forget,” Springbok captain Siya Kolisi said.
“These are the tours we’ve only heard of. To experience this for the first time, where it’s like a (British & Irish) Lions tour, is unbelievable for us as a group.”
The tour, the likes of which hasn’t been since since 1996, will take place after the start of World Rugby’s new Nations Championship, which is taking place in the July and November Test windows and will see the leading teams in the world – the Six Nations sides, their Rugby Championship counterparts and two more invited teams – go up against each other.
Wainwright ready to halt derby day woes
Aaron Wainwright insists ‘bad things will come to an end’ as the Dragons bid to halt their derby day hoodoo against Cardiff.
Dragons are winless in their last 20 league encounters with the Arms Park outfit, a sorry sequence that goes all the way back to December 2014.
Having played his part in ending Wales’s 18-match losing streak, Wainwright is ready to end another poor run.
“Obviously, it’s not something to be incredibly proud of, having a record like that against them,” he said.
“In my head, going through that period we’ve gone through with Wales, being able to put that to bed, that’s sort of a similar mindset going into this weekend.
“That would be a very nice double. Hopefully, I’m looking forward to doing that on Friday night. Bad things will come to an end.
“We have spoken about what this fixture means to us.
“I have been at this club all my career, and I haven’t beaten Cardiff, so that’s definitely an achievement I want to get this weekend. If we can do that, it will be a great result.
“It’s an awesome fixture to be involved in. At the start of the season, the derbies are always the ones you look at and pinpoint in the fixture list. “It’s a good game in the calendar to be involved in, so I am really looking forward to it.
“There’s always going to be that edge to a derby. You are playing against people you have been in international squads with, people you are friendly with, but you still want to win. You are not friends come game day, so there is always that edge to it for me.”
Erasmus calls for Rugby Championship date change
South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus has called for the Rugby Championship to be moved to the same time as the Six Nations, in a move he believes will help to align the international calendar.
As reported, the competition has been removed from the schedule next year to make way for the launch of the “Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry” series between the Springboks and New Zealand.
Full editions of the Rugby Championship will then be held in each of the following three years in its traditional slot in the calendar in August and September, although that window is likely to present issues for South Africa and Argentina given both squads will heavily draw on players based in Europe.
It means some players risk effectively playing all year round, with such a short gap between the July internationals and the start of the Rugby Championship each year.
Erasmus believes bringing the competition in line with the Six Nations would present the best solution.
“This is just my opinion, but I think it would be fantastic if we could play the Rugby Championship in February when the Six Nations is on,” he said.
“It would be so much easier for other teams to be all aligned, not so that some countries are flat in June and other countries are peaking in November, and then we are flat in November.
“Law changes, I think, would be so much easier to implement right across the board if all competitions started at the same time.
“In my honest opinion, I can’t see any reason why us, New Zealand, Argentina and Australia can’t play that competition at the same time as the Six Nations. But there might be a big thing that I’m missing.”