Andy Farrell's full debut in rugby union offered little encouragement for those hoping the former league star can fire England's bid to retain the World Cup next year.
Farrell was a marginal figure at blindside flanker as his union club Saracens went down to a 36-24 defeat at the hands of London Irish in an Anglo-Welsh Cup group match on Saturday.
But Farrell will have been relieved to finally get a senior start in the 15-man game under his belt, 19 injury-ravaged months after he switched codes.
Having come through the match unscathed, the former Great Britain captain will now join the England squad for a training camp next week.
"I am disappointed to be involved in a performance like that. I feel gutted but I've got to take responsibility," Farrell admitted.
"We never kept hold of the ball, we never got past two phases. It was frustrating more than anything. I found it hard to get into the game. Everybody finds it hard to get into the game when it is so disjointed," he said.
"When you play [No. 6] you have to do your job before you can get into the game and unfortunately we didn't get past two phases today. It is frustrating not to be able to play how you want to play. I am gutted by the performance," he said.
Holders Wasps crashed to a 36-20 defeat at Cardiff.
New Zealander Ben Blair was the architect of the Blues' victory, kicking 18 points and proving a constant menace to Wasps' defense through his pacy counter-attacking.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier