Dragon

Nerve wrecking match between and , UAE win and are through.

Kenya keeps rolling...

If you follow the other type of rugby you might think this is a shock but, as I've said before, the Wales team used to be made up of star amateur rugby union who went to the North of England to earn a living and that doesn't happen any more. In fact, had a full team from the top level leagues in Australia and England/France, had only one player from those leagues.

Although it could get complicated if a game gets rained off?

beat Ireland beat Everyone level on points On the run rate tiebreaker it looks like this Scotland +0.75 Zimbabwe 0 West Indies -0.27 Ireland -O.48

beat 34-12 but it was a good performance from Greece.

Quick history lesson. Rugby League split off from Rugby Union in the late 19th century. Rugby Union remained an "amateur" sport for another century but rugby league immediately became professional and had a a "rugby league" based in the North of England which was why the sport got its name. "League" developed roots in New South Wales and Queensland in Australia and the South of France as well as parts of New Zealand and Papua New Guinea but never got bigger than that. Along the way the rules changed. Instead of 15 players as rugby union has, there are only 13 in rugby league (2 fewer forwards). There are no line-outs and scrums are a lot less important. Traditionally Great Britain and Australia have been the giants of the sport but in the last 30 years Great Britain has split into England, Scotland and Wales and Australia have dominated the sport with New Zealand emerging as the second best team. What used to happen was amateur rugby union players would be tempted to sign for professional rugby league teams but when rugby union went professional in 1995 that basically ended in Europe but continued for Pacific Islanders. Now Tonga, Samoa and Fiji make up the top six teams with England, Australia and New Zealand. The weaker teams in this World Cup are made up of countries who have a lot of second and third generation immigrants in the strongest three countries of England, Australia and New Zealand.

This is the beauty of Totallympics. I can talk to people from the Netherlands or Iran about cricket, Greeks about Rugby League and ask questions about Volleyball to Serbs or Handball to people from Denmark

Results so far in the preliminary groups beat create a big shock by beating and the biggest shock comes when defeat the 2012 and 2016 champions

The Supreme Court of Guatemala objects to some of the rules of their national Olympic Committee and the IOC sees that as government interference

It ended 34-12 to New Zealand. Not a great game but a fantastic display from the Lebanese to be competitive to the end of the game

Well, it's not going to last long but just now lead 6-0....

Ireland defeat Jamaica 48-2 in the second match of the day

I can't see Russia giving him permission or else others might follow his example.

Their star today...

Will Jakovlev be eligible to qualify for the Olympics?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-63271423 Some things definitely did go wrong

This is so sad. Russian mothers try to protect their children from Putin's madness.

I know a couple of athletes who have been moved up in World Athletics championships events. They say you almost never get the money owing to you when others get disqualified for doping years later

I can only talk about about Games I remember but Melbourne, Rome and Tokyo 64 all have good reputations from those who remember them. 68 was spoiled by the effects of altitude, 72 ruined by terrorism, 76 was just average and 80 and 84 ruined by politics and rampant drug taking. Now to those I can talk about. 88 was a good Olympics but Barcelona was a fantastic Games. Atlanta 96 was great as long as you were watching on TV but the athletes and spectators were treated badly if you were there. Sydney was just magnificent, Athens OK, Bejing good, London almost as good as Sydney, Rio was fine and it's not fair to judge Tokyo 2021 because of Covid. My top three would be 1 Sydney 2 London 3 Barcelona But it depends a lot of where you come from and the problems with time zones

Good win by 42-8 over but I think England were the best team of the four today.

On which channels? The BBC coverage has been fine.