Daniel James and Robert Page both revealed players and officials suggested Portuguese referee Luis Godinho made a mistake in sending off Neco Williams during Wales’ 3-0 defeat in Nice. Williams was shown a straight red card after 26 minutes when the score was 0-0 at the Allianz Riviera on Wednesday night. The Liverpool full-back was only a few yards away from Karim Benzema when he blocked the Real Madrid striker’s close-range shot with both arms away from his body.

Olivia Breen and Rhys Jones agonisingly missed out on medals at the European Para Athletics Championships in Poland on Wednesday. Both Welsh athletes finished fourth in their respective sprint events on day two of the championships in Bydgoszcz. Competing in the final track event of the morning session, Jones secured fourth place in a high quality men’s T37 100m final, recording a time of 12.16 (+2.6).

Josh Turnbull has revealed he turned down what would have been a lucrative deal to move to English club rugby in favour of trying to win more caps with Wales. The offer to join a side Turnbull refuses to name came when the 33-year-old forward swapped home region Scarlets for current side Cardiff Blues seven years ago. Turnbull doesn’t regret the decision and he is hopeful his stunning domestic form this season for Cardiff will earn him selection with Wales this summer.

The real countdown to the Euros starts tonight when Wales face France in the first of two warm-up games before the tournament begins. For Chelsea’s Ethan Ampadu, the fixture will bring back good memories of the start of his international career, as he tells Alex Predeleux. Ethan Ampadu is aiming for another night to remember – and the promise of something huge to follow – when he steps out for Wales against France on Wednesday night. Three-and-half years ago, Ampadu made his international debut as a dreadlocked 17-year-old in a friendly at the Stade de France.

Cardiff City fans have reacted with anger and disappointment over the club’s decision to release Sol Bamba. The defender – who announced last month that he is cancer free following his battle with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma – has been moved on along with Joe Bennett, Junior Hoilett and Euro 2020-bound Wales midfielder Jonny Williams at the end of their contracts. Bamba, Bennett and Hoilett joined the Bluebirds in 2016 and made a combined total of 478 appearances.

Shot putter Kyron Duke claimed a silver medal on a successful first day for Great Britain at the European Para Athletics Championships in Poland. The Disability Sport Wales Para Academy athlete finished second in the F41 shot put as British athletes claimed four medals in Bydgoszcz. The first three rounds of the competition were completed in reasonably fine conditions with Duke claiming a best of 13.39m during the first half of the competition.

The confirmation that Jade Jones and Lauren Williams are off to the Tokyo Olympics as part of the Great Britain taekwondo squad is part of a significant shift in women’s sport, says Team GB chief Mark England. Double Olympic champion Jones and fellow Welsh star Williams have been rubber-stamped for selection by the British Olympic Association as part of a five-strong taekwondo team for the Games. There’s no surprise Jones and former European champion Williams are off to Japan, but England – the Team GB Chef de Mission – insists the pair are part of an increasing female domination of Team GB.

Osian Pryce made a successful return to the British Rally Championship (BRC) – finishing third on the Neil Howard Stages in his Rocked-!T-backed Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.

The Football Association of Wales have been compared to the owners of the failed European Super League clubs by angry women’s teams locked out of the new elite structure for the domestic game. Cascade YV Ladies are one of a number of outraged established clubs who have found their place in the new order has been determined by an FAW committee, rather than results on the field. Under new plans, Caerphilly’s Cascade, Abergavenny, and Briton Ferry Llansawel have all been dumped from the proposed elite top tier and replaced by new teams, one of which is yet to be created.

Michael Flynn has hinted he could be on the move from Newport County following their heart-breaking Wembley play-off defeat to Morecambe. The Newport boss has admitted to unhappiness after learning the club intend to appoint a sporting director to work either over or alongside him. Flynn suggested he could have reached the end of the road after County’s crushing 1-0 extra-time loss that denied them a place in League One.

Chloe Williams is celebrating her best finish yet on the Ladies European Tour after securing fourth place at the Italian Open. The Wrexham player – ranked fourth in Wales and 524th in the world – shot a two-under par round of 70 to finish on five under, for a share of fourth place alongside Michele Thomson of Scotland and the Australian, Stephanie Kyriacou. It was 26-year-old Williams’ best placing at an event since she joined the Ladies European Tour two seasons ago, in only the second event of the season, and it puts her ninth on the tour’s order of merit, the Race to Costa Del Sol.

Former Sky Sports reporter Bryn Law is about to reveal the dark arts and the gentle persuasions of the football reporter. The man who prowled the touchlines during Wales’ run towards Euro 2016 will be disclosing tales of tetchiness in the technical area in an online session open to budding broadcasters. Law will be laying it down with other reporters on a panel discussion on Thursday, entitled “The Evolution of the Football Reporter” hosted by the Royal Television Society Cymru and Expo’r Wal Goch.

By Steffan Thomas Louis Rees-Zammit has been backed to keep pace with South African superstar Cheslin Kolbe when they meet on the Lions tour this summer. Rees-Zammit enjoyed a sensational season with Wales that climaxed with the Gloucester wing earning a place in the British and Irish Lions squad to face the Springboks in three […]

Newport County’s golden oldies Kevin Ellison and Nicky Maynard plan to prove themselves the patron saints of the written off and rejected when they grace Wembley today. The senior strike partnership have a combined age of 76, but Morecambe would be wise to respect their elders when they face the pair in the League Two play-off final. Ellison – the bald Scouser who was dumped by Morecambe boss Derek Adams – became a hero to every middle-aged bloke in the land when the 42-year-old scored a brilliant goal in the second leg of County’s semi-final against Forest Green Rovers.

Welsh athletes have excelled at home and abroad as Kate Seary set a new Welsh steeplechase record in Manchester and Joe Brier claimed a huge new 400m personal best in Belgium.

Rubin Colwill – Cardiff City’s 19-year-old midfielder – has been included in Wales’ Euro 2020 squad after just 191 minutes of senior football. Colwill is the surprise name in a 26-man squad skippered by Gareth Bale and containing the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Daniel James, Ethan Ampadu and Joe Rodon. There are eight survivors from the group which reached the Euro 2016 semi-finals in France – Bale, Ramsey, Ben Davies, Chris Gunter, Danny Ward, Joe Allen, Jonny Williams and Wayne Hennessey.

Play-off finals, by their very nature, seldom amount to more than unspectacular and cautious affairs fraught by tension and fear of failure – but the curtain closer to the Welsh 2020/21 football season, much like the season itself, will be long remembered for being anything but ‘normal’. There was little indication of the events that […]

Steve Cooper insists there will be no sulking at Swansea City over the lost ticket to the Premier League. The Swans’ head coach has claimed he will soon get down to work on implementing plans for next season despite uncertainty over his own future following the play-off final defeat to Brentford at Wembley. Cooper’s side have been left to reflect on the certainty of starting the next campaign on zero points in the Championship – alongside the likes of Hull City and Peterborough – with 46 matches to play, instead of visiting venues such as Old Trafford or Anfield.

Jake Heyward has smashed Neil Horsfield’s 31-year old Welsh 1500m record in America. The Cardiff athlete clocked a brilliant 3:33.99 at the Portland Track Festival in the early hours of Sunday UK time to obliterate Horsfield’s existing Welsh best of 3:35.08, set in Brussels way back in 1990.

As the song says, we all need somebody to lean on. Newport County manager Michael Flynn had Lennie Lawrence whose wisdom could prove the foundation for play-off success at Wembley on Monday against Morecambe. Rob Cole spoke to him. Lennie Lawrence used to sit just behind Michael Flynn in the Newport County dug out and offer pearls of wisdom as and when required. But on Bank Holiday Monday, he will be sitting in the posh seats at Wembley with the club’s directors, casting an affectionate eye over the work of a manager he has grown to admire.