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Argentina has received an invitation to join South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in the Tri Nations competition. The Tri Nations are very similar to the Six Nations played between England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy.

Argentina will join the three teams in order to expand the south hemisphere rugby union championship from 2012. The approval to join the Tri Nations has yet to be confirmed by the governing body SANZAR.

Argentina also known as the Pumas are doing well at international rugby union, they came third in the world cup and are currently ranked sixth in the world. They have been actively pushing for an inclusion in the competition since the 2007 rugby world cup.

The format would be of a similar set up to the Six Nations and would be renamed to the ‘Four Nations’. During August each year, every team would play each other home and away, giving all countries six games and a total of 12 matches overall which would be played over an eight week period.

We’ll have to wait and see if the Pumas’ inclusion in the game is accepted.

On the back of their amazing Ashes victory, England has once again come up triumphs against South Africa in the ICC Champions Trophy.

England beat South Africa to reach the competition’s semi finals by 22 runs in the game that was played yesterday at The SuperSport Park, Centurion in front of an almost at capacity crowd. Owais Shah made 98, Paul Collingwood 82 and Eoin Morgan 67 as England hit 12 sixes in 323-8 to set up a 22-run win. England played well throughout the game, giving South Africa little room for manoeuvre.

The South African captain Graeme Smith batted superbly to put his side in with a chance of the victory. They needed a victory against England to stay in the competition which is being hosted in their home country. However this was not to be, with England playing so strongly. Stuart Broad ended the opener’s outstanding innings on 141, with South Africa on 274-9; England’s victory was effectively sealed.

South African captain commented after the match that England played well and were positive throughout. England had clearly set a standard which South Africa couldn’t beat. England will now face New Zealand on Tuesday.

Former Lion’s hooker Mark Regan is dusting off his running machine after he was invited to play in the Bermuda Classics tournament in November. The ex Bristol and Bath player stopped playing competitively at the end of last season and has been quoted as saying that “he is really looking forward to the challenge”.

The World Rugby Classics event will take place in Bermuda between the 7th and 14th of November and the Classic Lions are getting ready for the challenge of defending the title they won last time around.

The event started life in 1988 and was primarily for rugby stars whose playing career was coming to an end. It gave them the opportunity to extend their careers a little and play against each other.
Magnificent rugby players like Wade Dooley, John Mcbride, Gavin Hastings and Philippe Sella have all made the journey to the British overseas territory in the past.

This year’s event is approaching fast and definitely a tournament to mark on your calendar.

The man so long referred to as England’s talisman, has turned down the offer of an incremental contract with the national side in favour of seeing out the rest of his career as a freelance cricketer.

When he returns from injury, Flintoff will appear for Lancashire; IPL side, Chennai Super Kings; and England - if selected. His agent, Andrew ‘Chubby’ Chandler adds that there may also be additional contracts for Twenty20 sides around the world.

It is thought that the combined salaries from these various domestic sides would outweigh earnings from the England contract that was on offer, although, England wouldn’t actually have any say over where and when Flintoff would play under such a deal, so the decision is slightly odd.

One possible and unexpected explanation comes from Chandler, who says that the England deal contained a clause forbidding participation in extreme sports. He says that Flintoff is considering participating in a TV show in which he may do some bungee jumping.

The upshot of Flintoff’s new freelance status is that technically speaking he can pick and choose what matches he wishes to play for England, perhaps spurning England’s cricket tour of Bangladesh later in the year, for example. The reality, however, is that such behaviour would not be tolerated by England team director, Andy Flower, who has long considered Flintoff’s presence in a side merely a bonus and who would have no qualms about leaving him out of the team, if he felt the all-rounder was not fully committed.

London Irish full-back, Delon Armitage, won’t play any of England’s autumn internationals following an injury sustained while playing for his club.

Armitage recently dislocated his shoulder and will need 12 weeks recovery following an operation. This means he will miss the Tests against Australia, Argentina and New Zealand as well as some of the early games in the Heineken Cup.

Despite missing out on a place on this winter’s Lions rugby tour, Armitage has been a key part of the England side in recent times, playing in all of last season’s Six Nations fixtures and even receiving a nomination for Player of the Tournament.

Armitage joins centre Riki Flutey on the sidelines, meaning England must fill two key places in their backline. Martin Johnson is seeing the positive side however:

“Injuries happen. We have to get them back playing and look at the next guys in line. There are some very good young players in the Saxons group and some good players outside it.”

At present, Olly Morgan is the only other full-back in the England squad, although players such as Mathew Tait and Mark Cueto have played in the position previously. Meanwhile, Shane Geraghty has been mentioned as a possible replacement for Flutey at centre.

England centre Riki Flutey is concerned that a shoulder injury may keep him out of the upcoming autumn internationals.

Flutey, who is currently playing for Brive in France, is set to go into hospital early next week and depending on the results, maybe be out for some time. He was first injured at the start of the year, but it was further exacerbated during the Lions rugby tour over the summer.

Speaking about what’s to happen next, he said:

“I’m having an arthroscopy. They’ll find it needs a clean-out or if it’s a big tear which means surgery and three months out.”

Having carried the injury for months, Flutey believes he needs to get the problem addressed so that he can go out and give 100% in future matches. He is now a first-choice player for England and played the third Lions Test, where they beat the Springboks 28-9.

However, he has played only once for Brive as a result of this injury. Therefore it has been deemed time to see a specialist.

England are set to play Australia, Argentina and New Zealand during November, but Flutey is likely to miss all three games.

England’s current one-day opener, Ravi Bopara, has spoken about his ambitions to play a bigger part for the national side in the coming years.

Bopara had a dynamic start to the summer, completing a sequence of three successive hundreds in three Test innings. All were against the West Indies, the second and third in the UK, while the first was during England’s cricket tour earlier in the year.

However, reality hit hard in the Ashes, where he managed a top score of only 35 before being dropped for the final Test. Despite scoring a double hundred on his return to county cricket, he’s continued to struggle against the Aussies in the one-day series.

Bopara is rarely short of confidence though and says there is a lot more to come from him.

“Personally, I want to go out and get a big one and win games for England. I don’t want to get scores that just do enough to give England a chance to win, I want to go out and seal the win.”

England would certainly welcome a significant contribution from one of the batting line-up in one of the remaining four one-day matches against Australia. In the absence of Kevin Pietersen, no-one has stepped forward and all of England’s scores so far have been under par.

The third one day international at the Rose Bowl, Hampshire will start later today with England desperate to remedy their losing start to this seven match one day series. England have been unconvincing in the first two games of the series, and have in fact dropped to 6th place in the world rankings in 50-over cricket due to their recent dismal performances.

After England’s amazing Ashes victory it seems an enigma as to why the players seem so unconvincing at the 50 over game. With the limited overs game drawing great crowds and offering something different to the 5 day tests, England need to improve to cement their new fan base gained from the Ashes victory.

Stuart Broad will miss the game today because of a neck injury but should be back for the forth game in the series on Saturday. And, with all-rounder Andrew Flintoff sidelined because of his much overdue knee surgery, the bowlers will have to step up to the crease if England don’t want to be on the brink of a series loss after today’s game. Graham Onions is in the squad and Adil Rashid may be called upon to provide leg-spin after he was left out of the last game.

Whatever happens, England will have to start performing or the Ashes victory celebrations may get forgotten prematurely.

Australian cricket coach, Tim Nielsen, is set to leave the tour early in order to get a couple of weeks at home prior to a busy fixture list in the coming months.

Nielsen will leave after the fourth one-day match and the assistant coach, Troy Cooley, will take over. This will also coincide with Ricky Ponting’s return after a short break following the Ashes.

Michael Brown of Cricket Australia said:

“The Australian team has played back-to-back international cricket since September 2008 and we have a busy schedule over the next 12 months. This will also provide an excellent opportunity for Troy to continue his professional development by stepping up as acting coach for the remainder of the tour.”

Cooley previously worked as England’s bowling coach where he earned a great reputation after playing a key part in the creation of England’s 2005 Ashes-winning bowling attack of Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff and Jones.

England were unable to retain his services however and he left to take up a similar role with his native Australia.

Despite losing three out of Australia’s last four Test series, it is not thought that Nielsen’s position is in doubt. Cricket Australia are seemingly willing to acknowledge the fact that the side is in transition following the departure of a number of great players around 18 months ago.

Harlequins will still be allowed to play in the Heineken Cup after the organisers, the ERC, deemed the bans and fines the club has already received to be sufficient.

Harlequins were in danger of a ban following the fake blood scandal, whereby Tom Williams faked injury using a blood capsule to allow a tactical substitution. Williams himself was originally banned for a year, but following an appeal, this has been reduced to just four months.

More harshly dealt with were Harlequins director, Dean Richards and the physio, Steph Brennan. Richards has been banned for three years and Brennan for two. In addition to this, the club were landed with a £259,000 fine. The ERC have seen this as a fit punishment and are taking no further action.

A Heineken Cup ban could have cost the club in the region of £1.5million after they qualified through finishing second, but the ERC have not enforced this. However, they have stated that they are concerned by many of the issues that have arisen as a result of the blood capsule scandal and are meeting again to discuss these things. A stance will need to be taken in order to deal with any potential future club misconduct.