It came down to the final seconds, but the Lakers found a way to hold off the Thunder this time around, winning 99-96. http://t.co/mUPqQKfQ

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Leinster look to Kearney brothers for Euro rugby glory

By Robert Smith | AFP  –  Superboot Morne Steyn will play his 100th Super Rugby game for table-topping Northern Bulls this weekend as Wallaby playmaker Quade Cooper makes his first appearance for the Queensland Reds this year. The Bulls , who lead the Western Stormers by one point in the South African Conference, begin their New Zealand tour against the Otago Highlanders in Dunedin on Saturday. Fly-half Steyn, who has 1,134 career Super Rugby points, will become only the sixth Bulls player to reach 100 appearances and is targeting former Wallaby scrum-half George Gregan’s record 136 caps in the southern hemisphere provincial competition

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Steyn eyes ton for Northern Bulls in Super 15 rugby

By Keith Moore BBC News Concussion is the fourth most common injury in the English rugby Premiership Continue reading the main story Related Stories Ex rugby star will donate brain Irish international rugby player John Fogarty was shocked when doctors advised him to retire from the sport. He had never gone under the surgeon’s knife during his entire 11-year professional career and had made his international debut for Ireland only a year before.

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Concussion risk for rugby players

Relegation or the merger of two teams appear the only options as the South African Rugby Union again met with its Super 15 sides yesterday about the problem of having six contenders for five places next year. Saru held talks with representatives of the five teams in the Super 15 and the Southern Kings, and although the governing body is seeking to ensure no team would be “damaged” by a solution, it’s doubtful that can happen. Super 15 organiser Sanzar has regularly insisted it is not in a position to expand the tournament to 16 teams before the end of the 2015 season.

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Rugby: Relegation on horizon for Lions

Time was, when any meeting of Irish provincial rugby teams was little more than a storm in an Irish tea cup. Irish television might cover it for the Guinness guzzlers in the pubs of Ireland but no one got terribly excited

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Rugby: New Zealanders key in an all-Irish final

Associated Press  –  WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The International Rugby Board has denied it ordered Samoa to exclude a player from its squad for the Pacific Nations Cup because of his history of controversial Twitter posts. Center Eliota Fuimaono-Sapolu was banned for six months after last year’s Rugby World Cup for a Twitter post that described Welsh referee Nigel Owens , who worked Samoa’s match against South Africa, as racist and biased.

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Rugby board says no ban on tweeter Fuimaono-Sapolu

Reuters  –  MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australia and New Zealand , the top two rugby nations by world ranking, have welcomed a new financial model for World Cup revenue set to boost their shares of takings from the quadrennial showpiece. The sports global governing body, the International Rugby Board , announced the new model at a meeting in Dublin this week which promised an additional 50 million pounds for the game’s development over 2012-2015. New Zealand , which hosted last year’s World Cup, threatened to boycott the 2015 tournament in Britain over revenues, claiming it had cost the union NZ$13 million due to restrictions on sponsorship and foregone revenues from the abridged Tri-Nations rugby competition

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Australia, New Zealand hail new rugby World Cup deal

Australia and New Zealand, the top two rugby nations by world ranking, have welcomed a new financial model for World Cup revenue set to boost their shares of takings from the quadrennial showpiece. The sports global governing body, the International Rugby Board, announced the new model at a meeting in Dublin this week which promised an additional 50 million pounds ($80 million) for the game’s development over 2012-2015.

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Rugby-Australia, New Zealand hail new rugby World Cup deal

AFP  –  The Rugby World Cup England is to host in 2015 will kick off on the compromise date of September 18, rugby union’s governing body, the IRB , announced on Tuesday. The decision, the IRB said, was the “result of an exhaustive and collaborative review process which culminated in the recommendation of September 18 by Tier 1 chairmen and chief executives last week as the most suitable start date within the September-October Rugby World Cup window “. England’s Rugby Football Union (RFU) had wanted a September 4 start to the sport’s showcase event, but the southern hemisphere unions preferred a September 25 kick-off to minimise disruption to the Rugby Championship, the tournament that is replacing the Tri-Nations after the inclusion of Argentina.

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Rugby World Cup 2015 to kick off on September 18

GENEVA (AP) — Baseball and softball’s joint campaign to return to the Olympics in 2020 is awaiting feedback from an IOC board meeting.

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Baseball and softball wait for feedback on 2020 Olympic bid from IOC