Covering the Wales rugby side is never dull, but the start of the team’s World Cup campaign in Japan saw them breach already lofty standards of controversy.

Irish para powerlifter Britney Arendse has been upgraded to bronze from last year’s Asia-Oceania Open Championships after a doping violation by the original third-placer.

Louise Galvin and her Ireland Women’s Sevens team-mates get the penultimate round of this season’s HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series underway in Canada tonight with qualification for next year’s Tokyo Olympics at the forefront of everyone’s minds.

Japan executed four convicted killers today, the Justice Ministry announced, amid criticism that the country’s secretive and slow-moving justice system leaves inmates to languish on death row for decades.