Toby Booth has insisted the Ospreys’ shock announcement that he is to stand down at the end of the 2024-25 season is the right decision. The Swansea-based region have said that former Bath and London Irish coach Booth, who masterminded progression to the United Rugby Championship play-offs and EPCR Challenge Cup quarter-finals last term, will be succeeded by former Wales wing Mark Jones. Jones will step up from his current position as Ospreys defence coach, with Justin Tipuric replacing Jones in that job.

Welsh rugby is back. It may not be a big fanfare opening as the regions and also the clubs involved in the new Super Rygbi Cymru are still in their summer slumber, but the third tier of the sport awakens this weekend.

Wales Women head coach Ioan Cunningham is poised to hand debuts to three uncapped players from the bench after naming his team to face Scotland at the Hive Stadium, Murrayfield on Friday. Prop Maisie Davies, hooker Rosie Carr and lock Alaw Pyrs are all set to win first senior caps from the replacements’ bench.

All four Welsh regions will be in action this weekend (Saturday, 31 August) as the big build-up to the new season gathers pace. The Ospreys will welcome Aberavon, Bridgend and Swansea to the Swansea.Com Stadium for their innovative ‘Origin Series’, which will include three 30 minute matches against the new Super Rygbi Cymru teams in their reg

Josh Adams is fit, fresh and raring to go again after a much-needed summer off. The Cardiff Rugby and Wales wing was left out of the Wales tour to Australia in July to enable him to get a knee and groin injury sorted – and to give him a break from the game.

Former Wales star Louis Rees-Zammit is expected to miss out when the Kansas City Chiefs name their 53-man roster for the 2024 NFL season on Tuesday. The 23-year-old – who switched sports on the eve of last season’s Six Nations – appears likely to be assigned to the Chiefs’ practice squad to continue his development after crossing the Atlantic at the start of the year.

S4C will show every Wales senior men’s match in the Autumn Nations Series for the next two years. The games will be available on television, as well as on S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer.

Newport have kicked-off their 150th anniversary season in fine style with big pre-season wins over Usk, Brecon and Blackheath. The Black & Ambers are hoping to go one better than the runners-up spot they finished in during last season’s Indigo Premiership campaign. The previous season they were runners-up in the WRU Premiership Cup.

Dan Biggar believes Wales have something to build on after displaying “enough promising signs” during their Australia tour. A 2-0 series defeat against the Wallabies this summer extended Wales’ losing run to nine Tests – one short of equalling the record sequence in 2002 and 2003.

Wales lock Dafydd Jenkins is set to miss the start of the new rugby season with Exeter after undergoing knee and shoulder surgery. Rob Baxter, Exeter’s director of rugby, said Friday it was still a “little bit fluid” when it came to a date for the 21-year-old second row’s playing return, but that he would be unavailable for the English Premiership opener against Leicester on September 21.

Welsh athletes have returned home, having made a remarkable impression at the Paris 2024 Olympics, achieving their best performance to date. A record 33 Welsh competitors, including 19 Olympic debutants, represented Team GB, bringing home a total of 13 medals—three gold, three silver, and seven bronze.

He’s used to wearing No 14 or No 15 for Wales but Louis Rees-Zammit donned the No 9 shirt for the Kansas City Chiefs as he made his NFL debut in a pre-season game against the Jacksonville Jaguares at EverBank Stadium. The 23-year-old Rees-Zammit signed a three-year deal with the Chiefs, the two-time defending Super Bowl champions, in March after making a headline-grabbing code-switch away from rugby union. He joined superstars Patrick Mahomes, Trevor Lawreance, Carson Wentz and Mac Jones were among the big name players who joined the Chiefs squad in the first pre-season outing.

The new rugby campaign is still some weeks away here in Wales, but like Amazon and Netflix, the global season never sleeps. So, just as you may have been digesting the Sevens tournament at the Olympics in Paris, off the back of Wales’ summer tour to Australia, the kitchen doors are swung off their hinges and in come the waiters, ready to serve up the Rugby Championship.

Wales Under 18s head coach Richie Pugh has named his squad to take part in a Men’s U18 Development week involving teams from Italy, Scotland and hosts Ireland this week in Clongowes Wood College and the IRFU High Performance Centre. “It’s the start of our programme, it’s a repeat of last year when we hosted Ireland, Italy and Scotland, but this time it’s in Ireland for what is our first touch point with the boys,” said Pugh.

The former Wales international Alun Carter, who became one of the most influential people in the establishment of performance analysis in rugby in Wales, has died while out on a walk at the age of 59. The captain of the 1983 Welsh Schools Grand Slam winning team, he went on to enjoy a 15 year senior career of more than 300 first class games that ended in April 1999. In that time he played for Pontypool, SO Millau, Newport and South Glamorgan Institute / UWIC.

In the same week in which she became an Olympian, Kayleigh Powell has secured a new deal for next season in the 15-a-side game by signing for Harlequins. She will play for Quins – whose men’s squad this week recruited Leigh Halfpenny – in the 2024-25 Premiership Women’s Rugby campaign.

Leigh Halfpenny has always gone about his business quietly and with minimum fanfare, so it was entirely in keeping that his decision to join Harlequins was low key. No big unveiling, no leaked stories in the previous 48 hours to build the suspense.

Jasmine Joyce admitted to feeling “numb” after suffering another Olympic heartbreak in a Great Britain shirt. The Wales star, and her country’s best-known female rugby player, saw her quest for a medal crushed by a physical USA in the quarter-finals of the Olympic Games women’s Rugby Sevens at Stade de France.

Leigh Halfpenny will bring 17 years of wisdom and leadership to Harlequins next season, according to their coach, Danny Wilson. The former Wales and Lions full-back – now 35 – has joined the London club ahead of the new season, along with former Wales prop Wyn Jones.

The former Llanelli, Wales and British & Irish Lions utility back Peter Morgan, who went on to become chair of Pembrokeshire County Council, has died at the age of 65 after battling a brain tumor. A multi-talented player, he won the first of his four Welsh caps as a replacement centre against Scotland in Cardiff in 1980 at the age of 21. He started at outside-half against Ireland two weeks later.