Plans are believed to be afoot to launch a third-tier competition comprising low-ranked national teams and club sides in a move that could help solve the European rugby union crisis.

The English Rugby Football Union (RFU) is confident European competition can be salvaged for next season, with chief executive Ian Ritchie warning the alternative would be vastly inferior.

In charge of rugby here since 1998, Philip Browne has overseen a transformation of fortunes on and off the field. But will a change of coach at national level be enough to keep the champagne flowing, asks Kyran Fitzgerald

After weeks of posturing over the future of the Heineken Cup, European Rugby stakeholders will all meet face to face for the first time in a Dublin hotel today to begin thrashing out a way forward for the continent’s premier club competition.

LEINSTER and Munster’s top brass have issued a ‘thanks, but no thanks’ response to the possibility of taking their Heineken Cup home matches overseas in the immediate future.

THE Ospreys have been fined £100,000 and docked four league points next season for breaching Magners League rules.

Brian O'Driscoll admits last year's Grand Slam heroics have left Ireland determined to retain their place at the summit of European rugby.

ENGLAND’s RFU will submit a government-backed bid to stage the 2015 World Cup. Twickenham, Wembley, Old Trafford and Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium are set to be included as venues in the RFU’s blueprint.

There is a suspicion that Munster's Red Army have been responsible of the purchase of many of the 35,000 tickets sold for the 13th Heineken Cup final being played at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday, May 24.

Heineken Cup chiefs have offered no major response to the threat of next season’s flagship competition being decimated by a French boycott.