England will not make an official complaint to governing body World Rugby over the refereeing in Saturday's 40-24 defeat by Wales.

England head coach Eddie Jones said after the match his side were "not allowed to debate" the decisions.

Ex-England captain Martin Johnson described the awarding of Wales' first try as "appalling refereeing".

The score came when Gauzere had told England captain Owen Farrell to talk to his players about ill discipline, before allowing Wales' Dan Biggar to take a penalty while the visitors' were still in a huddle.

Biggar kicked cross-field for wing Josh Adams, who scored.

The controversy around Wales' second try centres on whether wing Louis Rees-Zammit knocked the ball on while attempting to gather a kick.

The incident happened in the lead-up to a try for Liam Williams and Gauzere deemed it a legitimate score.

The defeat all but ended England's hopes of defending their Six Nations title, while Wales remain on course for an unexpected Grand Slam after sealing the Triple Crown.

MARYSVILLE, Calif. — Blake Carrick won the headlining 360 sprint car feature during Saturday’s Open Wheel Sprint Car Opener promotion at Marysville Raceway Park.

Driving the No. 38b sprinter, Carrick beat Tanner Carrick to the checkered flag by 3.716 seconds on the quarter-mile dirt track.

Brent Bjork, Nick Ringo and Keith Day Jr. rounded out the top five.

Boy Moniz won the wingless sprint car feature with Cameron Haney Jr. topping the crate sprint main event.

The finish:

Feature (25 laps): 1. #38B Blake Carrick 2 #83T Tanner Carrick 3 #7B Brent Bjork 4 #3T Nick Ringo 5 #22 Keith Day Jr. 6 #4 Jodie Robinson 7 #3 Kaleb Montgomery 8 #31C Justyn Cox 9 #14W Ryan Robinson 10 #88 Kyle Offill 11 #83V Sean Becker 12 #32 Caden Sarale 13 #6W Billy Wallace 14 #1M Jimmy Trulli 15 #93 Stephen Ingraham 16 #12J John Clark 17 #49 Mike Monahan 18 #01 Nick Larsen 19 #17W Shane Golobic 20 #92 Andy Forsberg 

Schalke's problems continued on Sunday as they sacked their first-team leadership to become the first club in Bundesliga history with five different coaches in one season.

Following Saturday's 5-1 defeat at Stuttgart, the Bundesliga's worst side in over 50 years have taken dramatic measures in a desperate attempt to halt the free fall towards a first relegation since 1988.

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"On Sunday, Schalke 04 dismissed head coach Christian Gross and his assistant Rainer Widmayer," a club statement said.

"Squad manager Sascha Riether and Werner Leuthard, head of performance, have also been released. The supervisory board also decided during a conference call to lay off Jochen Schneider, the sport and communications executive, with immediate effect."

Peter Knabel, a coach and director of the youth academy at Schalke, will take over the sporting leadership of the club, while a new coach is yet to be appointed.

The next coach will be the club's fifth of the season following David Wagner, Manuel Baum, Huub Stevens and Gross. This is a record in the Bundesliga's nearly 60-year-long history, with the record of four different coaches held by several clubs including Hamburg and Hertha Berlin.

"The decisions made today became inevitable after the disappointing results against Dortmund and Stuttgart," said Jens Buchta, the head of the supervisory board.. "We must not beat around the bush: The sporting situation is obvious. That's why we must think ahead to the new season with every personnel decision we take now."

Buchta was only promoted to the position after long-term club chief Clemens Tonnies departed last summer after making racist remarks in 2019. With nine points from 23 games, Schalke trail Arminia Bielefeld in the relegation playoff place by nine points.

The Royal Blues must dramatically turn around their season to stay up in the remaining 11 fixtures, with no Bundesliga side ever managing to stay up with such a record after 23 games.

Schalke host Mainz on Friday. The visitors have 17 points, but one game in hand. Unlike their imploding opposition, Mainz managed to bridge the gap in their last five games.

Also on seven points after the first half of the season, they have picked up 10 points from five games under the new leadership which includes former Schalke executive Christian Heidel, who returned to the club after leaving the Royal Blues in early 2019.

On Friday night, reports emerged that squad leaders Sead Kolasinac, Shkodran Mustafi and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, all of them signed in the winter transfer window, had called for the sacking of Gross, who had come out of retirement to take over Schalke in late December. They were reportedly not happy with the Swiss coach mixing up names in team meetings as well as his training routine.

Under his reign, the club avoided equalling Tasmania Berlin's historic record of 31 consecutive league matches without a win when beating Hoffenheim 4-0 last month. However, they only managed to pick up two draws from the next nine games in which they scored four goals and conceded 23.

Ahead of their 4-0 home defeat to Borussia Dortmund in what could turn out to be the last Revierderby, Germany's biggest derby, in many years, Schalke ultras paid a visit to the team hotel.

They demanded explanations from the players and leadership and also mocked sporting executive Schneider, suggesting that instead of the medical department the groundsman carried out Huntelaar's medical ahead of his return from Ajax. The 37-year-old club legend has only played 10 of a possible 630 minutes since re-joining and has missed six of seven games with injury.

Sunday's implosion is not the first at Schalke this term. Earlier this season they sacked their technical director, suspended two players, Nabil Bentaleb and Amine Harit, from the first team -- both of them have since returned -- and parted ways with a third player, Vedad Ibisevic, who joined before the start of the season.

Schalke were in a good position to challenge for a Champions League place in the 2020-21 season, but their downfall since then has been unparalleled. They won two of their last 44 games and lost 26, adding up more defeats than goals. They have scored 25 and conceded 98.

To make matters worse, amid the coronavirus pandemic, the club's already critical financial situation has worsened, but the club said earlier this month they will be able to finance a year in the second division.

Chinese football was thrown into disarray on Sunday as the owners of reigning Chinese Super League champions Jiangsu FC announced the club would cease operations with immediate effect.

A post on Jiangsu's official WeChat account expressed hope of new backers or that a "company of insight" would be willing to consult on the team's future.

The announcement said all football clubs owned by the Suning Group, including the hugely successful Jiangsu Suning Women, would "cease operations from today."

The Nanjing-based retailer, one of China's biggest and which also owns Italian Serie A club Inter Milan, said earlier in February that it intended to focus on core businesses, leaving non-retail assets at risk.

These assets include Jiangsu FC, which won the Chinese Super League title in November for the first time with a playoff win over eight-time champions Guangzhou Evergrande.

That victory was the pinnacle of a club previously coached by ex-England manager Fabio Capello, and which in the summer of 2019 attempted to sign Gareth Bale, formerly the world's most expensive player, from Real Madrid.

The squad that clinched the title and a place in this year's AFC Champions League featured Brazilian winger Alex Teixeira, who chose to make a €50 million switch to Jiangsu in 2016 over interest from Premier League side Liverpool.

When Teixeira refused to sign a new contract at the end of last season and with coach Cosmin Olaroiu reported to be unlikely to return to the club, questions started to be asked of Jiangsu's financial future and the knock-on impact on football in China.

The Jiangsu announcement comes days after Chinese FA Cup winners Shandong Luneng had their expulsion from the AFC Champions League confirmed by the Asian Football Confederation due to "overdue payables."

Should Jiangsu fail to find new owners soon, their absence could cause further upheaval in the Asian Champions League ahead of the start of the continental competition in April.

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — Kody Swanson won the Dave Steele World Non-Winged Sprint Car Championship 125 for the second consecutive year Saturday night at Showtime Speedway.

Driving the Doran Racing No. 77, Swanson started fourth on the three-eighths-mile asphalt oval and quickly worked his way to the front.

Swanson, who won the pro late model title during the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway, held off Friday night feature winner Kyle O’Gara to claim the $5,000 top prize.

L.J. Grimm, Shane Butler and Tyler Roahrig rounded out the top five.

George Gorham Jr. won the super late model feature.

The finish:

Kody Swanson, Kyle O’Gara, L.J. Grimm, Shane Butler, Tyler Roahrig, Sport Allen, Joe Ligouri, Dude Teate, Travis Bliemeister, Tommy Nichols, Johnny Gilbertson, Stan Butler, Troy Thompson, Nick Andrade, Dakoda Armstrong, J.J. Dutton, Ronnie Wuerdeman, Keith Butler.

MODOC, S.C. — Brandon Overton brought the fans to their feet with a bit of outside groove magic, making the pass on runner-up Ross Bailes in the closing laps to pick up $7,000 and his second Drydene Xtreme DIRTcar victory of the season Saturday at Modoc Raceway.

“[Modoc’s] kinda my home track. It’s the closest thing to me, so to win in front of everybody I know, it’s pretty awesome,” Overton said.

Defending series champion Chris Madden carried a 25-point lead into Saturday night’s finale at Modoc and left still 20 points ahead of runner-up Kyle Strickler when all was said and done.

A sixth-place finish to Strickler’s top-five in the feature was good enough to seal his second consecutive Xtreme DIRTcar championship.

“It’s huge for us to win for [Drydene],” Madden said. “They help us a lot, and I’m just thankful to have them and be a part of this.”

While it all worked out in the end, Madden did not get the start to his night that he was looking for. Qualifying 22nd out of 29 cars, his path to the championship was in question as he searched for the right setup for his heat.

“I made a really bad decision right before qualifying; that’s on me. But we were able to dig ourselves out of the hole,” Madden said.

Coming from eighth in the first heat, Madden snagged the fifth and final transfer spot at the line on the final lap, placing him 13th on the starting grid for the feature. Strickler had a much better qualifying effort and earned a fourth starting spot for the 40-lap feature via the redraw.

Polesitter Christian Hanger got the jump into turn one at the drop of the green and led the first two laps before Dustin Mitchell made the power move to the inside to take the top spot – one he would keep until lap 25 when Ross Bailes made the groove one lane higher work to swipe the lead away.

Overton had been riding third and decided to try the higher groove out for himself. What he found worked, as he made the move around the outside of Mitchell just four laps later.

“I had to wait on everybody’s tires to get hot so they’d start getting free in [the corner], and when they started getting free in, I knew I could attack getting into [turn] three,” Overton said.

By this time, Bailes had pulled out to a considerable lead as he approached lapped traffic. As the laps were winding down under 10-to-go, Overton made reeling Bailes in look easy.

“We caught that traffic just at the right time. I didn’t run the top until I got back to [Bailes]. I went up there a lap before and I got really close and I hung, and he kinda got away, so I knew not to get really, really high in [turn] one and I could still do my deal down in three and four,” Overton said.

With five laps left on the board, Overton knew it was crunch time. He peeled off the bottom and slung it to the higher groove he’d used on Mitchell to make the pass, bringing the Modoc crowd to their feet with his bravery as he drove off with the lead and the eventual win.

“[Bailes] just kinda got it stuck up there, and I finally got it blown-off enough to finally clear him. It was a hell of a race,” Overton said.

Strickler gave it a solid effort, bagging his fourth top five in five Xtreme races this season, even after a bit of contact with Overton in the opening laps heading into turn one.

“It cost us some spots, but it didn’t cost us a championship,” Strickler said.

Madden crossed the stripe right behind him after a solid run up through the field from 13th. While he is noted for having a solid poker face in these pressure situations, Madden did admit the points situation was an active thought in his mind as he pulled onto the track for the feature.

“It was pretty heavy,” he said. “[Strickler] drew a four, and that put himself in-position to get it done. I put myself in a position to get beat.

“Especially when you’re coming into the Feature and the guy you’re battling is up front and you’re in the back. It was mine to lose when I came here tonight, and I almost did it.”

The finish:

Feature (40 Laps) 1. 76-Brandon Overton [6][$7,000]; 2. 79-Ross Bailes [5][$2,500]; 3. D8-Dustin Mitchell [3][$1,700]; 4. 71-Hudson O’Neal [8][$1,400]; 5. 8-Kyle Strickler [4][$1,200]; 6. 44-Chris Madden [13][$1,000]; 7. 89-GR Smith [10][$800]; 8. 2-Matthew Nance [9][$700]; 9. 6JR-Parker Martin [7][$600]; 10. 18D-Daulton Wilson [15][$550]; 11. 19-Pearson Lee Williams [11][$500]; 12. 88-Trent Ivey [2][$500]; 13. J1-Joshua Bishop [14][$500]; 14. 10-Garrett Smith [18][$500]; 15. 421-Anthony Sanders [20][$500]; 16. 57-Adam Yarbrough [21][$500]; 17. 6-Dillon Brown [19][$500]; 18. 17V-Tim Vance [22][$500]; 19. O3-David Yandle [24][$500]; 20. 29-Christian Hanger [1][$500]; 21. 42K-Cla Knight [12][$500]; 22. OO-Dalton Polston [23][$500]; 23. 87-Walker Arthur [17][$500]; 24. 18-Brett Hamm [16][$500] Hard Charger: 44-Chris Madden[+7]

What Kevin Mather did last week was to effectively trigger a klieg light over a pitch-dark, rat-infested corner of baseball. Everybody in the sport is aware of the noncompetitive behavior present among many of the 30 teams. Everybody can hear the gnawing on good faith and on the integrity of competition. Everybody recognizes the financial manifestation, the enormous shift in dollars from the players to the owners.

But when the now former CEO of the Mariners said out loud what almost no one has said on the record before, Mather fully illuminated a creepy part of the sport that fuels the players' distrust of management -- a part of the sport that even a lot of folks on the management side detest, because it's antithetical to what initially drew them to competitive sports.

This toxic part of the business needs to be excised in the next collective bargaining agreement. That can happen only with a sportwide reset, so that everybody works against the worst use of analytics and focuses on two very simple principles:

1. Teams should be devoted to fielding their best players.
2. Teams should try to win as many games as possible.

And the rules should be reconstructed to foster those principles. But the path back from the bad-faith abyss the game is in now is complicated, and Major League Baseball and the players can get there only if they find a way to work together. Even if MLB tried to build guardrails against tanking and service-time manipulation and close loopholes, the players would have to agree to any set of rule changes -- and at the moment, there doesn't seem to be a lot of hope for a system redesigned by both sides through collaboration

Maybe a mutual fear of the nuclear option -- a prolonged labor stoppage -- can push them into a constructive alliance. But I'm far from confident that's a possibility.

The Mariners' awful week demonstrates the destructiveness of the practices Mather referenced, practices that somehow became standard operating procedure for most teams.

Seattle hasn't been to the playoffs in almost two decades. General manager Jerry Dipoto -- in the midst of a rebuild -- tried to distance himself from Mather's comments in speaking with the Mariners' players. But Jarred Kelenic, the organization's top prospect, told USA Today that when Dipoto spoke, "It was literally like someone farted in church. That is the exact expression on everybody's face."

The GM's words lacked credibility in the eyes of the players, because everyone in the sport is well-versed in how often teams have eschewed winning in the short term in order to bend rules to their advantage -- and to the players' disadvantage. Many teams have constructed teams meant to fail -- as cheaply as possible, to heighten profit -- and delayed the promotion of players to the big leagues for the sake of gaming the system and stunting the earning power of their best young players.

It happened to Kris Bryant. It happened to George Springer. It happens to players all the time.

South Australia 8 for 510 dec (Head 223, Hunt 109) and 9 for 230 dec (Carey 82*, Nielsen 67) drew with Western Australia 5 for 409 dec (Green 168*, Bancroft 126) and 9 for 148 (Worrall 4-30, Grant 4-38)

Western Australia's No. 11 Liam O'Connor, who has yet to score a first-class run, survived the final over of a pulsating final day to secure a draw against South Australia.

O'Connor came to the crease with 23 balls of the match remaining after Daniel Worrall had struck in consecutive overs to remove Hilton Cartwright, who had battled a back injury to make 25 off 122, when he jabbed to short leg, and then had Liam Guthrie caught behind.

Cameron Gannon, who had formed a 16-over stand with Cartwright when South Australia were pushing for victory in the final session, tried to farm the strike but struck the last ball of the penultimate over too well and collected a boundary.

However, O'Connor was able to negotiate six balls from Chadd Sayers although there was added agony for South Australia when the last delivery of the match lobbed in the air into the off side but didn't reach any of the close catchers swarming the batsmen.

South Australia's pace attack, led by the four-wicket hauls for Worrall and David Grant, put in a huge effort to try and secure the Redbacks' first victory of the season after they had declared shortly before lunch to leave a target of 332 in 75 overs.

Western Australia were never in a position to threaten the chase and the visitors sensed their chance when Grant, playing his first Sheffield Shield match in more than three years, had Cameron Bancroft caught at point and trapped Cameron Green lbw two balls later. Six overs later he added Josh Inglis and when Aaron Hardie edged Sayers, Western Australia were 5 for 88 with 45 overs still remaining.

Cartwright, batting at No. 7 after being off the field on the third day with a back problem, accompanied Shaun Marsh for 14 overs but Grant then made his next big impact when he found the edge of Marsh's bat, meaning the bowlers were exposed.

Matt Kelly played a poor stroke, splicing a pull off Worrall, to leave them seven down with 22 overs remaining before Cartwright and Gannon brought safety within sight deep into the final hour, but there was more drama to come.

I have to give credit to England for getting back into Saturday's Six Nations game after Wales were awarded two controversial tries, but I cannot get my head around the team's lack of discipline.

There are no excuses for it. The only solution is for the players to sort it out themselves.

I do not see the leadership on the pitch to deal with the adversity.

For all the record-breaking experience that this England team have, in a weird kind of way they do not actually have the right type of leadership to win rugby games.

I want to see a player going up to another England player, in his face, telling him to stop giving penalties away. Screaming at the forwards when they get into a decent area so that they do not concede any penalties.

Because there are no fans, you can hear everything now. I hear the England players and it is all cajoling and tapping people on the bum telling them it is OK when they have just given away their 13th penalty.

Then you look at Wales captain Alun Wyn Jones when something does not go right - he has this steely look about him.

I was co-commentating with Wales fly-half Rhys Patchell and he called it the "Alun Wyn stare". Everybody knows if you make a mistake and he gives you one of those looks, you are never going to do it again.

That does not exist within this England team. They are all best mates and loving every minute of being part of the England camp, but there is no friction.

Plenty of people I played with for England did not like me because I could be obnoxious on the pitch.

But I would like to think that when I said something that was a bit forthright, those players might have got it and it made a difference. Sometimes you need those prickly characters.

We have to be careful to look after the mental health of sportspeople and avoid bullying.

I understand that, but if somebody is doing something wrong continually and you have 10 minutes to win the game, you have not got time to assess it afterwards because you lose.

'I do not know how Itoje was not sin-binned'

Lock Maro Itoje conceded five of England's 14 penalties against Wales.

He is a star player who plays on the edge. There is no question about that. With his work-rate, enthusiasm, talent and energy, he is England's top player.

It may have been a mindset thing or the referee's interpretation. I do not care how good a player you are, once you have given three penalties away alarm bells have to be going in your head.

Something has to change. You have to get your head down and not compete for 50-50 balls. I do not know how he was not sin-binned with five penalties.

If you give fewer than 10 penalties away in a game, that is OK. England have given away double digits three games in a row. No-one other than the players can fix that.

It is the most experienced England side ever. Players must recognise when the penalty count is getting too high at crucial moments.

'England were stitched up by the officials'

Like I said, England did brilliantly to get back in the game after Wales' first two tries.

The final 40-24 scoreline looks like a bit of a thumping - but that is the result of what happened in the first half.

England were royally stitched up by the officials. Many teams would have disappeared after that. Your head would be gone.

Before Wales' first try, referee Pascal Gauzere had asked Owen Farrell to talk to his players about discipline.

Usually the captain says they will and does not talk to the players, but Farrell brought all the players into a huddle to tell them to sort the discipline out.

As they turned around, the players were barely past the width of the posts and the referee said to play on, allowing Dan Biggar to kick wide for Josh Adams to score.

I found that disrespectful to Farrell and the fact he did not lose his mind there is a credit to him. It was an utter nonsense.

Then, Wales wing Louis Rees-Zammit gathered a kick and, in my opinion, knocked the ball on before Liam Williams scored a try.

There is not one Wales player - including Rees-Zammit - who would have given that try. I do not even think any of the fans would have.

The officials had the chance to look at multiple angles and they gave a try. What on earth happened? It was a total and utter shambles.

It was not only the fact that 14 points were unnecessarily handed to Wales. It is the ripple effect that that has.

When England got back to 17-14 before half-time, I was convinced they were going to go on and win the game.

'Wales are right on it'

Wales remain on course to win a Grand Slam after claiming the Triple Crown but they have a tough fixture in France on the final weekend.

Wayne Pivac's side will go to Rome in the next round full of confidence and Italy are not going to cause a problem.

France's game against Scotland was postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak in the French camp, so who knows where France are going to be in a couple of weeks' time? But Wales are right on it.

They have history of building momentum when people have written them off. Wales have got people like Jonathan Davies, George North, Alun Wyn Jones and Justin Tipuric - players who have done it before and know how to bottle up winning ways.

The tournament so far has been epic so it would be disappointing if the France v Scotland game is not played soon.

It is set to be an incredible final game between France and Wales in Paris.

Matt Dawson was speaking to BBC Sport's Becky Grey.