Barclay set to quit Scarlets for Edinburgh
● Beaumont denies he has been left humiliated as World Rugby’s recommendation is ignored by unions
John Barclay is on the brink of a return to Scottish rugby, with a deal in place for him to join Edinburgh for next season.
Barclay, 31, is understood to have agreed to leave Scarlets who he captained to the Guinness Pro12 championship last season
The back row forward has been with the Welsh region since leaving Glasgow Warriors in 2013.
Edinburgh were further boosted yesterday by the news that Scotland international Stuart Mcinally has signed a two-year contract extension.
Mcinally, whose deal was set to expire at the end of the season, has signed on until 2020 after an impressive run of form which included a man-of-thematch display as Scotland beat Samoa last week.
In his first international outing for over a year, the hooker touched down twice and produced a flawless throwing performance in the 44-38 win for Gregor Townsend’s side.
Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill said: “Stuart Mcinally has been Scotland’s form hooker and I’m delighted that he sees his future in Edinburgh.
“We’re building a strong culture and environment here and Stuart is very much central to those plans.”
France will host the Rugby World Cup in 2023, a year before the Olympic Games in Paris, after surprisingly beating South Africa and Ireland in a vote held yesterday.
The World Rugby Council disregarded the recommendation of an evaluation report to hand the tenth edition of its showpiece tournament to South Africa.
A secret vote by member nations instead saw France, which hosted the 2007 World Cup, beat South Africa 24-15 in a second round.
“If you look there wasn’t a great deal between France and South Africa in the evaluation report,” World Rugby president Bill Beaumont said. “It was very close.”
It means France will host four prestigious sporting events within six years, with golf’s Ryder Cup in Paris next year and soccer’s Women’s World Cup across France in 2019.
The French sports ministry said the decision to award it the Rugby World Cup so close to the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris in 2024 “demonstrates the excellence of the French know-how in organizing major sporting events.”
The Rugby World Cup final is set to be played at the Stade de France in Saint-denis,
0 Bernard Laporte, president of the French Rugby Union, centre, helps to move the Rugby World Cup trophy ahead of a photocall. just outside Paris. Eight other cities will host matches: Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nice, Saint-etienne and Toulouse.
South Africa, which staged the Rugby World Cup in 1995, has now failed with four successive bids to land the tournament again.
Fans gathered in the capital Pretoria expecting to celebrate victory in the vote. Instead, some of the crowd, dressed in the colours of the South African flag, was in tears as they watched the announcement from England.
“Why has it gone against the recommendation when most of the unions said they would vote with the recommendation?” Joel Stransky, who kicked the dropped goal that won the 1995 final for South Africa against New Zealand, said on Supersport television. “What is the point of having an independent auditor if you’re not even going to take heed of their recommendation?”
Beaumont denied that he had been left humiliated after the voted went against the recommendation.
“A humiliation for me? I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all,” Beaumont said.
“There’s always got to be one recommendation in the evaluation process and that was South Africa. Just because it went to France doesn’t mean there’s humiliation whatsoever.
“We feel the process has been absolutely transparent. Everyone’s been able to see how the scoring was.”
Irish Rugby Football Union chief executive Philip Browne was magnanimous in defeat.
“It’s not to be, our race is now run and today belongs to France. They have our warmest congratulations,” he said.
The 10th edition of the tournament coincides with the 200th anniversary of the birth of the sport, Jamaican sprinter Nesta Carter is at the Court of Arbitration for Sport to appeal against disqualification from the 2008 Olympics in a doping case that cost Usain Bolt a 4x100-metres relay gold medal.
Carter shielded his face from media on arriving at sport’s highest court yesterday for a closed-doors hearing expected to last all day. A verdict is expected within weeks.
The 32-year-old Carter is challenging his disqualification, which was imposed by the International Olympic Committee for a positive test for a banned stimulant.
Carter tested positive for methylhexaneamine last year in a reanalysis programme of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics.
The case spoiled Bolt’s perfect Olympic record of three gold medals – in the 100, 200 and 4x100 – at three consecutive games between 2008 and 2016.