Worcester Warriors have signed London Scottish tight-head prop Richard Palframan for next season.

The 25-year-old former London Irish man becomes the eighth player to commit to the Premiership club for the 2019-20 campaign.

"It's a great club with such passionate supporters, a great group of players and quality coaching staff," he said.

"I can't wait to join up with the squad and I'm looking forward to contributing to the club's future."

Warriors secured their Premiership survival this season with Saturday's 27-20 win over Gloucester

Saracens have signed Cornish Pirates scrum-half Alex Day, who will join the Premiership side this summer.

The 26-year-old former Northampton Saints youngster is a former England Under-20 international.

"I'd like to thank everyone at Cornish Pirates for everything they have done for me," Day - who joined the Pirates in 2015 - told the Saracens website.

"[Sarries] been really successful over the past five years or so and I'm excited to be a part of that."

The length of his contract with Sarries has not been disclosed.

Leinster scrum coach John Fogarty will join the Ireland coaching team after the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Fogarty will replace New Zealander Greg Feek as part of the new backroom team under incoming head coach Andy Farrell.

Feek plans to end his eight-year spell with the Ireland team at the end of the tournament to focus on coaching Japanese club NEC Green Rockets.

Wales forwards coach Robin McBryde will succeed Fogarty at Leinster after the World Cup in November.

Former hooker Fogarty will also work across all four Irish provinces in his role as IRFU National Academy forwards coach.

"I've enjoyed my time in Leinster Rugby. Working with some of the players from a young age and seeing them grow into senior players with Leinster and for some, with Ireland, has been brilliant," said Fogarty.

"To get the chance to now develop that further with all four academies and to work with Andy Farrell and the rest of the Ireland set up is something that I'm very much looking forward to.

"I wouldn't have had this chance though if Leinster Rugby and Leo Cullen hadn't given me the opportunity to work with the Leinster senior team. I am very grateful for that opportunity. I'll miss what we have built here at Leinster but I am equally excited by what lies ahead."

Ireland defence coach Farrell will succeed Joe Schmidt at the end of this year's tournament in Japan with existing coaches Simon Easterby and Richie Murphy also contracted to remain.

But Feek, who also served as a Leinster coach before joining the Irish set-up, had indicated his intention to step down after dividing his time between Japan and Ireland for the past year.

As the National Academy forwards coach, Fogarty will oversee the development of forward coaches within the Irish system and also hold technical clinics with the provincial academies, national age-grade squads and players in the National Talent squad.

Fogarty, who was part of the 2009 European Cup-winning Leinster squad, made 44 appearances for the province and also represented Munster and Connacht during a playing career in which he was also capped once by Ireland against New Zealand in 2010.

Leinster head coach Leo Cullen says he is "really excited about getting the opportunity" to work with McBryde after the Irish province moved quickly to recruit the former Welsh international to replace their outgoing scrum coach.

Speaking about his move, McBryde added: "I see it as a great opportunity to join a very experienced and exciting coaching team and to help continue Leinster's great successes. They are a world renowned team, with passionate supporters and I am looking forward to working with the squad and the coaches.

"I'm hugely proud of my time with Wales, and it has been an honour to coach my country. I have never taken it for granted and it has been a hugely rewarding experience to have been part of the coaching team under Warren Gatland and the success we have had over the years.

"I am thrilled to have secured my future with Leinster post RWC, and it now allows me to focus all my energy on the task at hand with Wales."

Israel Folau could still be paid by Rugby Australia despite having his contract ended because of a social media post in which he said "hell awaits" gay people, says former international Pat Howard.

Folau's future will be decided on 4 May at a hearing requested by the 30-year-old full-back following his dismissal.

It will be heard behind closed doors in Sydney by a three-member panel.

"I can't see him playing again for Australia," Howard told BBC Sport.

"[But] you can still be paid but not selected."

Howard is an experienced sports administrator who left his position as the high-performance manager of Cricket Australia in November following another high-profile sporting controversy in the country - the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa in March 2018.

"I never like writing anybody off ever, for anything," said Howard, capped 20 times by Australia at rugby union. "There's got to be repercussions and then where he ends up, so be it."

Folau signed a four-year deal with Sydney-based Super Rugby side the Waratahs in March and had a contract with Rugby Australia until 2022, having escaped punishment for similar comments last year.

Rugby Australia said he "had committed a high-level breach of the Professional Players' Code of Conduct warranting termination of his employment contract".

Howard said the situation "needs to come to a conclusion", but that the case for sacking Folau was "murky".

"I'm sure they're planning for him not to be involved. But I look at this differently," he said.

"It's the employment aspect. Unfortunately that will be protracted. You can still be paid but not selected. Selection and employment are two different things. It's very murky.

"You shouldn't be able to sack people for religious reasons, we all get that, but you also can't just say things that vilify everybody. These two things absolutely contradict each other.

"That's the real challenge. But a lot of the players have said the situation is not rectifiable, so I think that's laid the platform."

FONTANA, Calif. – Simon Gregg’s TA class victory in round two of the Trans-Am Presented by Pirelli West Coast Championship at Auto Club Speedway was not how he wanted to claim it.

Nicholas Rosseno’s TA2 class win and first overall finish played out exactly to script in the young Californian’s wildest dreams.

Gregg needed to complete only half of the race’s scheduled 36-lap/100.8-mile to claim the victory and maximum points as his only TA-class rival, Greg Pickett, was unable to start Sunday’s feature

Pickett’s Ford Mustang, which won the West Series season-opener at Thunderhill Raceway, lost an engine in qualifying – as it had at Thunderhill. Late on Saturday evening, the team learned the spare was not plumbed to fit the Mustang engine bay, forcing them to withdraw.

“First, hearing about Greg [Pickett’s] engine was a bummer,” said Gregg, the soft-spoken Floridian who this month is celebrating 20 years with the Minnesota-based, Troy Benner-owned Derhaag team.

For his first race at Auto Club Speedway, Gregg had come focused on winning, had been fastest of all in practice and qualifying, and was determined to claim his fifth career Trans-Am victory. With his only competition unable to start, though, Gregg had only to complete half the race distance to collect the victory. His crew sent him out to do half distance plus one lap, which Gregg did dutifully, pulling away three to five seconds per lap from the TA2 pack behind, retiring quietly on lap 20.

“I’m excited about [the next race at] Laguna Seca,” Gregg said in the morning, forced to hold back his enthusiasm until the next race in just a week’s time.

Thus the story at Fontana was the growing TA2 class, and it was a dramatic tale start to finish, with a big cast, a string of woes, and a happy ending for the trio of podium finishers.

The highly anticipated Brad McAllister vs. Anthony Honeywell/Mustang vs. Camaro duel in TA2 was over at the start as the differential in periodontist McAllister’s Thunderhill-winning and Fontana pole-winning Mustang failed and he coasted through the pit exit into the paddock.

CPA Honeywell’s second-fastest-qualifying Honeywell Competition/TFB Performance Camaro tore away into a comfortable lead which he’d extended to nearly 17 seconds on lap 25 when his alternator failed and he, too, coasted into the pits.

Honeywell’s retirement handed the lead on lap 25 to Michael Mihld who was suddenly in the spotlight, the Temecula, Calif., native having worked his way to the front from next to last on the grid, starting at the back because a broken suspension pick-up forced him to miss qualifying.

Mihld’s story lasted only one lap. A driveshaft broke as he accelerated toward turn 12 on the very next lap and he rolled silently to a stop.

In the space of two laps, Rosseno moved from third to first, into a comfortable lead he would extend to 23.14 seconds and never relinquish.

While it sounds like a boring second half, the race was never dull, thanks to a breathtaking battle between David Smith’s Shockwave Marine Camaro and Cameron Parsons self-supported similar car which lasted in varying degrees of intensity from laps 17 to the final lap 36, the pair passing and re-passing several times.

“We certainly didn’t give each other anything, and I’m glad I did short-track racing,” said Canadian Smith after the race. “I really thought I could pick up the draft at the start from McAllister, but it didn’t work out that way…”

McAllister’s differential breaking on the line caught out Smith who was right behind, and sent the red Shockwave Camaro to nearly the back of the TA2 field — into the clutches of young Parsons who had started last after missing qualifying altogether with alternator problems.

In spurts and bursts, the pair slowly worked their way forward, all the way up to second and third following the spate of mid-race retirements, where their scrap in the closing laps kept the crowd in the pit lane boxes on their feet.

For his back-to-front efforts and race-long battling, Smith took the Cool Shirt Systems Cool Move of the Race award.

Rosseno was a jubilant winner, his consistency over the closing laps belying his lack of experience: Fontana was only his second-ever race start.

“I haven’t raced a car competitively ever, other than quarter midgets and stuff when I was a little kid. License last year and then Trans-Am this year.”

With such a big lead, was Rosseno hearing things in those final laps?

“I started smelling things actually,” he said. “I started to get a little hint of gear oil. We’d been having problems with the rear end throughout practice and the race at Thunderhill. But we made it to the finish!”

Rosseno, an IT specialist by day, acquired the ex-Justin Napoleon Camaro last year and maintains it with his dad, a “family project” that earned an impressive reward at Auto Club Speedway.

JACKSONVILLE, Ill. – A new track record wrecks in qualifying and hard racing in the Drydene heat races.

All were leading up to a thrilling 40-lap feature Sunday night at Jacksonville Speedway, but then Mother Nature intervened.

World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and track officials were forced to postpone the remainder of Sunday’s event, which still had the last chance showdown and feature to go.

Series and track officials are looking for a reschedule date.

With 42 cars in attendance and a packed house at the speedway, the night started with NASCAR star Christopher Bell setting a blistering sub-10 second lap in hot laps – 9.887 seconds, a second faster than Logan Schuchart’s 2016 record setting lap of 10.805 seconds. That lap didn’t count for the track record since it came in hot laps.

Instead, Aaron Reutzel reset the track record in qualifying with a 10.028-second lap.

“We were fortunate enough to draw good and not go out too late,” Reutzel said after claiming the track record. “The track definitely fell off there.”

The event then moved into four thrilling Drydene heat races. Reutzel continued to show his speed by winning the first heat. Three-time series champion Sammy Swindell and rookie Carson Macedo had a fierce battle to the finish of the second heat, with Swindell coming out on top. Schatz won the third heat and David Gravel won the final heat, with Brent Marks finishing second from 10th.

The final heat was the start to Marks’ comeback story, after crashing in qualifying and not making a lap. His strong heat race run put him in the DIRTVision Fast Pass Dash. He grabbed the lead at the start of the Dash and set sail for the checkered flag, claiming his first Dash win of the season.

The Last Chance Showdown was on track next, but Mother Nature decided to let rain fall, thus bringing an end to the evening.