Your Guardian sport weekend: Women’s Rugby World Cup quarters, Manchester derby and more
Tom Bassam has all the buildup to Saturday’s bumper football action.He’ll spin through the headlines and look ahead to eight Premier League fixtures, with team news and breaking stories.First action of the day is the lunchtime kick-off at the Emirates Stadium, where Arsenal host Nottingham Forest and English football welcomes back its favourite not-for-turning Aussie.Ange Postecoglou is back in work after replacing Nuno Espírito Santo at the City Ground, less than three months after leaving Spurs.David Hytner and Barney Ronay provide expert reports and analysis, with Rob Smyth providing online coverage.
The worlds get rolling in Tokyo and we have all the action covered.Fellow sprinters Dina Asher-Smith and Daryll Neita may be more familiar names, but the Grantham athlete Amy Hunt is enjoying an excellent season.The 23-year-old British 100m champion has set personal bests in three events this year, though she faces a stacked lineup in both the 100m and 200m in Tokyo.Hunt and the British women, who landed Olympic silver in Paris, have high hopes for the 4x100m relay, an event they enter with a world-leading 41.69sec set in July.
Hunt, Asher-Smith and Neita all also go in the 100m heats, while fellow British athletes Erin Wallace, Revée Walcott-Nolan and Laura Muir feature in the 1500m heats and Megan Keith races in the women’s 10,000m final.John Brewin analyses the action live, while Sean Ingle reports from Tokyo.Two compelling quarter-finals on Saturday and first up with minute-by-minute coverage is Daniel Gallan, with Robert Kitson at Exeter.New Zealand, the holders, face a South Africa side that have 10 changes to the starting XV beaten 57-10 by France.With a nod to Rassie Erasmus’s men’s selection when the Springboks defeated the All Blacks in their 2023 World Cup final, their head coach, Swys de Bruin, has picked seven forwards on the bench.
“We like the physical stuff, we back our strength and we feel it’s the right thing to do,” De Bruin says.After that, it’s Canada v Australia at Ashton Gate.Canada are the tournament’s dark horses and underlined their credentials with a thumping 40-19 defeat of Scotland.Australia showed hosts England they are not to be underestimated either in Brighton, and their backs Desiree Miller and Caitlyn Halse will certainly test Canada’s defence.Alex Reid hosts our live blog, with Sarah Rendell our reporter in Bristol.
Back from the international break, the rolling thunder that is the Premier League offers five 3pm kick-offs.There’s Bournemouth v Brighton, Crystal Palace v Sunderland, Everton v Aston Villa, Fulham v Leeds and Newcastle v Wolves, where Eddie Howe is looking ahead to a “storm of games” in September, when his side also come up against Barcelona, Bournemouth, Bradford and Arsenal.“Hugely important for us,” says the Newcastle manager, who will be without Yoane Wissa, who suffered a knee injury in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s World Cup qualifier defeat by Senegal.“We always knew with the schedule how the early part of this season would look for us, kind of a slow start with week-to-week games then bang.We are going to be into a storm of games and that’s what we want.
” Emillia Hawkins helms our clockwatch, with all the goals and match updates.There’s plenty of needle to this spicy London derby with West Ham’s summer sale of Mohammed Kudus to Spurs the latest flashpoint between two teams with an addled history of mutual antipathy.The Ghana winger has already become a firm favourite with Spurs fans after his £55m summer switch.However, Graham Potter insists he has no regrets about selling Kudus.“We’re at the stage now where you want players that are fully committed to West Ham, that want to be here,” says the Hammers manager.
“Then, once that’s the position, you have to try and get the best deal that you can, the best financial position for the club, and hopefully grow the team and improve the squad.” West Ham have beefed up security for the match while also banning supporters from wearing half-and-half scarves in an effort to ease tensions between rival fans.Rob Smyth helms our minute-by-minute coverage while Jacob Steinberg reports from the London Stadium.The evening kick-off is another London derby, with the attention moving from east to west.Just one of the eight Premier League meetings between Brentford and Chelsea have been won by the home side, a 2-1 win for the Blues in December 2024.
Brentford have won three Premier League matches against Chelsea but all of them have been at Stamford Bridge – at home, they are winless in four.The Blues’ head coach, Enzo Maresca, is hoping to give his new signing Alejandro Garnacho some game time: “He is working well.For sure, he needs to work because he arrived here not 100% fit.He needs to work.He is working well and we will see.
Hopefully we can give him minutes.” Xaymaca Awoyungbo helms our live blog with John Brewin reporting from the Gtech Community Stadium.Terence Crawford – America’s finest boxer since Floyd Mayweather Jr – steps up two weights to face the undisputed super-middleweight champion Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez in Las Vegas, the 37-year-old Nebraskan fighter aiming to become the first male boxer to win an undisputed title in three weight classes in the four-belt era.Bryan Armen Graham brings you all the action, round by thrilling round.John Brewin and Niall McVeigh are your hosts as we look forward to Sunday’s key football action.
Our unmissable live countdown will bring you all the build up to the big games in the Premier League – the Manchester derby plus Burnley v Liverpool – with the day’s big Championship game, the south coast meeting of Southampton and Portsmouth, the focus of our clockwatch; Ben Fisher will be reporting from St Mary’s.Nice fact: the last south coast derby in the league takes place after a hiatus of 13 years and 160 days and it’s only the seventh league meeting between the teams in the past 37 years.Daniel Gallan hosts our live blog for Ireland’s first Women’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final since 2014.The game sees the return of the back-row Aoife Wafer in Exeter.The 2025 Six Nations player of the tournament missed the pool stages as she recovered from knee surgery in July.
She takes the place of co-captain Edel McMahon, who plays her club rugby for Exeter, after the flanker picked up a knee injury in the defeat by New Zealand,Ireland are quietly confident of reversing their 27-15 defeat by France in the Women’s Six Nations in March,With the summer transfer saga finally resolved, Arne Slot is holding off on giving Alexander Isak his debut after the striker’s £125m switch from Newcastle,“Don’t expect Alex to [play] 90 minutes on the pitch every single game,” the Liverpool manager said,“That’s definitely not going to happen for the next few weeks.
He missed a proper pre-season … so now we have to build him up gradually.That is going to be a challenge, but we have signed him for six years so this is what we have to keep in mind, and what the fans have to keep in mind if I take him off in a certain moment or I only bring him in for a few moments.That is all for the fitness of the player.” John Brewin brings you all the action, minute by minute, with Will Unwin reporting from Turf Moor.England lost by 14 runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method at soggy Sophia Gardens in Cardiff after a run chase of only five overs.
Rain in the Welsh capital had cut the T20 contest by more than half with the match delayed until 8.50pm – two hours and 20 minutes after the scheduled start.The Proteas had reached 97 for five from 7.5 overs before a short shower ended their innings prematurely, leaving England a tough revised victory of 69 from 30 balls under DLS calculations.The second game of the three-match series takes place at Old Trafford on Friday.
James Wallace has over-by-over coverage of the finale at Trent Bridge on Sunday, with Ali Martin reporting from Nottingham.England are determined to avoid being overcome by the occasion when they clash with old rivals Scotland in Sunday’s quarter-final.The Red Roses are red hot favourites to register a 31st successive Test victory – they thrashed the Scots 59-7 in this year’s Women’s Six Nations – with the winners at Ashton Gate going on to face France or Ireland.Anything other than lifting the World Cup on 27 September would be seen as failure, but the forwards coach Louis Deacon insists England are approaching each obstacle as just another day in the office.“It’s one of those things where you don’t make it bigger than it already is.
You want it to feel normal to the players, which is exactly what we’ve done,” Deacon said.England have been lifted by Zoe Aldcroft’s return to training after their captain missed the Pool A victories over Samoa and Australia with a knee injury but the world player of the year, Ellie Kildunne, will miss the quarter-final because of concussion.Niall McVeigh is our live blog host, with Sarah Rendell and Robert Kitson reporting from Bristol.There’s little early-season uplift to detect at either Manchester club as Pep Guardiola and Ruben Amorim’s sides go head to head at the Etihad Stadium.After one win from their opening three Premier League fixtures (and not forgetting that EFL Cup exit at League Two Grimsby) there’s been little cheer for the visitors.
City’s record so far – W1 L2 – is similarly underwhelming and makes for Guardiola’s worst start to a league campaign.With squad rebuilds at both club partly the reason for the torpor, laying down a marker for the rest of the campaign will be uppermost in the respective managers’ minds.Rob Smyth tracks the action minute-by-minute with Jamie Jackson and Jonathan Wilson providing reports and analysis.
Children detained under Mental Health Act held for hours in A&E departments
Children as young as nine detained under the Mental Health Act are spending hours in NHS accident and emergency departments under police control rather than in specialist mental health assessment suites.The detention under the act of children in England and Wales in police cells was banned in 2017 but a lack of suitable options has led to the use of A&E departments.Research to be presented at a British Sociological Association conference at Northumbria University on Friday found that 187 nine-to-18-year-olds were detained under the act in a single constituency in the north of England between 2017 and 2021. Three-quarters were taken to A&E, where legally they could wait for up to 24 hours, accompanied by police officers, until they were assessed.It was mainly children aged 16 and over who were able to access adult facilities who were taken to specialist suites under the care of trained mental health staff
Hospices ‘on the brink’ financially if assisted dying is legalised
Hospices are “on the brink” and two in five are making cuts this year despite the importance of end-of-life care if assisted dying becomes legal, the sector has warned before the first House of Lords debate on the legislation.Hospice UK, which represents the sector, said many were financially struggling and still “in the dark” about how funding for end-of-life care will be improved when assisted dying legislation is passed.The terminally ill adults (end of life) legislation is due to have its second reading in the House of Lords on Friday, with Charlie Falconer, a Labour peer and the co-sponsor of the bill, taking over from the MP Kim Leadbeater.Before the debate, in which 190 peers have put their name down to speak, Falconer expressed optimism that it will pass through the Lords in time for it to become law by the spring.“There is more than enough time for the Lords to scrutinise the bill and return it to the Commons before the end of the parliamentary session,” he said
Cost of place in children’s care homes in England hits almost £320,000 a year
The cost of a single place in a residential children’s care home in England has nearly doubled in five years to an average £318,000 a year, with private firms racking up huge profits as a result of market failure, according to the public spending watchdog.The £3bn children’s homes market, which is increasingly dominated by private firms, some funded by private equity, is “dysfunctional” and too often fails to deliver a good service for youngsters or value for money, a National Audit Office (NAO) report said.In the most extreme instances – likely to involve children with complex needs who require 24-hour supervision by multiple staff – councils had been charged up to £63,000 a week (£3.3m a year) for a single placement, the NAO said.Privately owned care firms ramped up fees above the rate of inflation, with the biggest providers enjoying average annual profit rates of 22
Girls who play after-school sport in UK 50% more likely to later get top jobs, study finds
Girls who play after-school sport in the UK are 50% more likely to get top jobs later in life, according to research, which reveals that the boost is equivalent to a university degree.Despite this benefit, girls are far less likely to play sport than boys, with 11- to 18-year-olds each missing out on 1.4 hours a week, or 280m hours annually, with 340,000 more girls excluded due to cost and lack of local access, according to the research. One in three girls surveyed for the report said boys had access to a wider range of sports.The research found that women who played extracurricular sport as children were much more likely to reach senior professional roles
Boom times and total burnout: three days at Europe’s biggest pornography conference
The crowd that gathers in Amsterdam is exuberant. Pornography use is more common than ever, so earnings for many here are through the roof. But there is trouble afoot, from AI to chronic illness …Brittany Andrews, a cheerful American porn star, cuts to the chase in her workshop on how to succeed in the adult industry.“Do you think about how much money you’re going to make before you make a clip? Do you know what stuff sells the best? Or do you just follow your creative spark?” she asks. She points to a young Ukrainian model in a gold sequined bra and denim shorts
More than half of UK births now involve medical intervention, audit finds
More than half of women having a baby in Britain now do so with the help of medical intervention, an audit of NHS maternity care has revealed.Of the 592,594 births that took place in 2023, 50.6% involved either a caesarean section or the use of instruments such as forceps or a ventouse suction cup.Experts said the rise in medically assisted deliveries represented a “major shift” driven by births becoming more complicated in recent years, partly because more older or obese women are having babies.The increasing regularity of medical intervention is largely down to the sharp rise in caesarean births, in which the baby is delivered during an operation
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