Warren Gatland will take over the Chiefs in his native New Zealand when his contract as Wales coach ends after the World Cup this autumn.

The 55-year-old is set to replace Colin Cooper who is stepping down.

He will coach the Chiefs in 2020, be released to take charge of the 2021 British & Irish Lions, and then is expected to return to Hamilton for two more seasons.

"I am really excited about the opportunity to come back home," he said.

"The opportunity to come back as head coach of the Chiefs is something that I am really looking forward to.

"The Chiefs are well known for the success they've had both on and off the field and the really loyal support they have from everyone within the Chiefs region.

Gatland had told BBC Sport earlier in June he wanted to coach a Super Rugby side.

"I would love to be involved with Super Rugby and to challenge myself with that," Gatland had said after being confirmed as Lions coach for the 2021 tour to South Africa.

"I want to go back. I have been head coach with Waikato and won a championship there, and I want to challenge myself with Super Rugby."

Gatland has been coaching in the northern hemisphere for close to three decades, holding roles with Connacht, Ireland, Wasps, Wales and the Lions.

In more than a decade with Wales, Gatland has won three Grand Slams, a further Six Nations championship and reached the semi-finals of the 2011 World Cup.

The former Waikato hooker coached the Lions to a series win over Australia in 2013, a drawn series in New Zealand four years later and his stint next year will equal Sir Ian McGeechan's record as a three-time head coach.

Analysis

Chris Jones, BBC rugby union correspondent

The Lions hierarchy are believed to be supportive of Gatland's move, and feel he will be able to sharpen his coaching skills as well as gathering first-hand information on South African opposition.

Returning to the New Zealand system could also put Gatland firmly in the frame to eventually take charge of the All Blacks.

Israel Folau looks set to take his unfair dismissal case to Federal Court after failing to reach a settlement with Rugby Australia.

Both parties have said they were "disappointed" by the outcome of a Fair Work Commission conciliation.

Rugby Australia terminated his contract in May after the evangelical Christian said "Hell awaits" gay people.

"Thanks to those who have supported me. I will continue to stand up for the freedom of Australians," said Folau.

His lawyer George Haros said that "unless things change we'll be heading to court".

The 30-year-old, who also had his contract terminated by New South Wales Waratahs, believes the dismissal is an unlawful act of religious discrimination and could now apply to have his case heard in Australia's Federal Court.

Rugby Australia and the NSW Rugby Union issued a joint statement, which said: "Rugby Australia and NSW Rugby Union are incredibly disappointed that the Fair Work conciliation has been unsuccessful and did not reach a resolution.

"We remain confident in our processes and will continue to do what is required to defend the values that underpin our game."

After the first GoFundMe page set up to help the former player cover the costs of Folau's legal action was shut down, a second raised more than two million Australian dollars (£1.1m) in just two days.

Gloucester fly-half Danny Cipriani has been added to the squad for England's second World Cup training camp.

More to follow.

FULTON, N.Y. — Fulton Speedway’s Showdown at Sundown came down to two cowboys from the west.

Erick Rudolph dominated most of the 100-lap DIRTcar 358 Modified Series race, but Mat Williamson, in the black and red No. 6, spoiled Rudolph’s night with dramatic pass on a late-race restart.

Williamson was ecstatic to edge out rival Rudolph, who set the Billy Whittaker Cars Fast-Time Award for the second race in a row. Rounding out the podium was Danny Johnson, who started 10th.

Williamson took the victory after two third-place finishes earlier in the week.

“He [Rudolph] had a good car early,” Williamson said. “We got to lapped traffic and it was challenging for me. You gotta plan on cautions. I didn’t see anyone poking their nose for second, so I rode around on the bottom to save my tires for a late-race restart and that’s what we got. It was pretty awesome to get a win like that tonight.”

Rudolph was understandably disappointed to lose the lead so late in a race that he had dominated. Rudolph was pleased with his car and the race he put together but ultimately believed he should have won.

“Going into Ransomville tomorrow, we’ve had a good race car there,” Rudolph said. “We are running really consistent. I’m really proud of the car, the team, and all my sponsors and supporters. Hopefully, we can keep that consistency going.”

Danny Johnson found himself back on the podium with the No. 83.

“We had a good race car, there’s no doubting it. We had troubles last night where it jumped out of gear. We thought we had it fixed but it still jumped out of gear about five times. I held it in gear with one hand and kept my other hand on the wheel,” said Johnson.

Kyle Inman and A.J. Miller won twin 25-lap sportsman features.

The finish:

Feature (100 laps): 1. Mat Williamson 2. Erick Rudolph 3. Danny Johnson 4. Dave Marcuccilli 5. Mike Mahaney 6. Chad Brachmann 7. Todd Root 8. Bobby Harrington 9. Tim Sears 10. Chris Raabe 11. Corey Wheeler 12. Justin Haers 13. Chris Hile 14. Larry Wight 15. Steve Bernier 16. Tyler Meeks 17. Ronnie Davis 18. Yan Bussiere 19. Lance Willix 20. Kyle Dingwall 21. Michael Parent 22. Pat Ward 23. Jordan McCreadie 24. Jeff Sykes 25. Mark Dilario 26. Ryan Arbuthnot 27. Tyler Thompson 28. Tyler Trump 29. Tim Fuller 30. Dale Planck 

JOLIET, Ill. — Ty Majeski scored his third ARCA Menards Series victory of the season with a dominant performance in the Bounty 150 on Thursday night at Chicagoland Speedway.

Majeski led 72 of the 100 laps and at times led by more than 12 seconds. Several late-race cautions allowed the field to close the gap, but Majeski’s Ford pulled away again and beat Harrison Burton’s Toyota by 9.179 seconds.

“We’ve won all three races in a different way,” Majeski said. “We didn’t have the best car at Charlotte and beat them on a couple of late race restarts, we got them in the pits at Pocono, we almost got them on fuel mileage at Michigan and we wore them out with the best car here tonight.”

Majeski’s biggest challenge throughout was to stay focused on hitting his marks and not abusing his tires.

“The last thing I wanted to do was to build up a fifteen second lead and blow the right front out from driving it too hard and abusing it,” Majeski said. “I just wanted to hit my marks and keep the car out of trouble and bring it home. This is as much about showcasing Chad Bryant Racing and the stuff they build as it is showing the world what I can do and it would make me look horrible to throw away a car that dominant.”

The battle behind Majeski over the last 20 laps was intense and Burton, Bret Holmes, Michael Self, and Travis Braden all swapped positions throughout. Burton would end up coming out on top of that battle.

Burton is doing double duty this weekend, bouncing back and forth between the ARCA car and the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck garage.

“The two drive so differently,” Burton said. “There’s a lot more off-throttle time in the ARCA car. It’s a bit of an adjustment after spending so much time in the Truck. We had a great night with the Venturini Motorsports team. We aren’t running for the drivers’ championship over here, but they are leading in the owner’s points and it’s really important for us to keep them up front.”

Holmes finished third, his best finish of the season, a year after parking his family-owned team for this race as the team struggled with performance.

“Last year at this time we were 450 points out of the points lead and had run every race,” Holmes said. “This year we are 30 points out of the lead. It’s a night and day change. We’re getting better every week. We finished ahead of Michael (Self) tonight but he still will get those bonus points for the pole and leading laps. That’s the next step we need to make as a team. We went from the top ten to the top five. Now we need to go to finishing first or second and leading laps.”

Self ended up fourth after starting from the General Tire Pole, but it was an adventurous night.

“I made a couple of mistakes on pit road that cost us a lot of spots,” Self said afterwards. “I left before the left rear tire was on the car on the final stop and instead of restarting fourth we restarted ninth. The last lap was a good one, the best lap I ran all night. I wish we could have had a couple more laps so I could do more of what we did on the last lap.”

Braden rounded out the top five.

There were six lead changes among four drivers. Self, Eckes, and Burton all led in addition to Majeski.

BARRE, Vt. — Two of the most decorated Maplewood/Irving Oil Late Model drivers in Thunder Road Int’l Speedbowl history, Scott Dragon and Phil Scott, put another notch in their belts on Thursday night.

Two-time “King of the Road” Dragon earned his second straight win in the Casella Waste Systems make-up feature to start the evening, while Vermont Governor Scott captured his 31st late model victory at the quarter-mile track in the nightcap.

Dragon began the double-feature event by dominating the 50-lap Casella feature that had been rained out June 14. Starting third after qualifying held two weeks before, Dragon lay back early while Montpelier’s Josh Demers set the early pace. But it wasn’t long before the “Dragon Wagon” was closing the gap, and Dragon swept around the outside of Demers for the lead just before the halfway point.

The defending champion began pulling away following a lap-27 caution for Chris Pelkey’s spin while Demers faded in the high lane. Dragon had a straightaway-plus lead over a multi-way battle for second when another yellow flew for Trevor Lyman’s spin with just five laps to go. The pause was no problem for Dragon has he marched back away in the final sprint for his eighth victory at Thunder Road.

Polesitter Tyler Cahoon ran up front the whole race and finished second. Brooks Clark completed the podium while Trampas Demers nosed out Cody Blake for fourth.

In the second 50-lap feature, Scott rebounded from late problems in the first main event to make a late charge for the win.

Scott started sixth and rode in fourth for much of the race’s first half as Darrell Morin, Eric Chase, and Christopher Pelkey went nose-to-tail at the front. As time began to wind down, Scott wound it up on the outside groove, eventually snatching the lead from Morin on lap 35.

Chase eventually followed Scott’s lead to take second and began closing on the three-time “King of the Road” in the closing circuits. But it was too little, too late as Scott earned his second victory at Thunder Road since being elected Governor of Vermont.

Pelkey ended up grabbing third in the late going while Morin barely held off Trampas Demers for fourth.

Milton Sam Caron finally earned his first career Thunder Road victory by taking the win in the 40-lap Lenny’s Shoe & Apparel Flying Tiger feature.

Jamie Davis was in the right place at the right time to get his first Allen Lumber Street Stock win of the season.

BROWNSTOWN, Ind. — Mike Marlar held off Darrell Lanigan to win Thursday night’s DIRTcar Summer Nationals feature at Brownstown Speedway.

Marlar started seventh and earned $5,000 for his fifth career Summer Nationals triumph.

Cade Dillard and Billy Moyer shared the front row for the 40-lap feature with Dillard taking the early lead. Meanwhile Marlar moved to second in less than 10 laps.

Dillard pulled away by a half-straightaway until Marlar closed the gap when Dillard encountered the rear of the field. Paul Stubber would run the middle of the Brownstown Speedway making Dillard chose the top line to get around him. Dillard’s decision to move up high opened the door for Marlar on the bottom.

Before both cars got around Stubber, Marlar stole the lead on the exit of corner number four. Marlar would seal the deal when he slide-jobbed both Dillard and Stubber in turns one and two. A caution flag waved one lap later for Steve Casebolt off the pace on the back straightaway.

On the Delaware double-file restart, Cade Dillard picked the outside, putting Scott James inside him. James would take second from Dillard on the restart with Lanigan from the 13th starting position working his way to fourth on the restart.

Lanigan continued his march to the front as he would pass Dillard on the bottom. Two laps later, Lanigan would pass James for the runner-up honors. Mike Marlar was the only driver separating Lanigan from $5,000.00.

Both drivers caught rear of the field allowing Lanigan to get under Marlar several times. The lapped cars forced Mike Marlar to switch grooves. That shut down Lanigan’s run down low, allowing Marlar to run away to victory.

Scott James, Bobby Pierce and Moyer filled the top five.

The finish:

Feature (40 Laps) – 1. 157-Mike Marlar [7]; 2. 29-Darrell Lanigan [13]; 3. 83-Scott James [4]; 4. 32-Bobby Pierce [10]; 5. 21-Billy Moyer [2]; 6. 96-Tanner English [11]; 7. 97-Cade Dillard [1]; 8. B5-Brandon Sheppard [6]; 9. 18J-Chase Junghans [5]; 10. CJ1-Rusty Schlenk [15]; 11. 99JR-Frank Heckenast Jr. [17]; 12. 2-Nick Hoffman [18]; 13. 1G-Devin Gilpin [9]; 14. 32S-Chad Stapleton [21]; 15. 3S-Brian Shirley [3]; 16. 76-Shelby Miles [16]; 17. 18-Shannon Babb [19]; 18. 25-Jason Feger [12]; 19. 31AUS-Paul Stubber [20]; 20. C9-Steve Casebolt [8]; 21. 99B-Boom Briggs [14]; 22. 87-Walker Arthur [22]; KSE Hard Charger Award: 29-Darrell Lanigan[+11]

JACKSON, Minn. — Questions with no clear answers lingered in heads of thousands like a painless headache during the final three laps of Thursday’s Jackson Nationals opening-night race at Jackson Motorplex.

Could Brad Sweet catch David Gravel? Could Gravel hold Sweet off?

Gravel had the four-tenths-mile tamed, leading every lap up of the World of Outlaw NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series feature until that point. But on a charge behind him, the untamable “Big Cat” Sweet.

With two laps to go, they were side by side down the back stretch. Gravel hesitated for a millisecond on a lap car’s trajectory, while Sweet didn’t blink, darting underneath the lap car and Gravel into turn three and claiming the lead off turn four.

From there the answer was clear. Sweet won his sixth World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series race of the season — his 40th career win and third straight.

“It’s sure fun to drive this thing right now,” said a jubilant Sweet. “We’ve really hit on some stuff. It’s been a joy to drive good the last few weeks.

“I’m a little worn out, I was really clutching the wheel, trying to hit my marks there late in that race. I knew it was coming down to the white there.”

The win may have been Sweet’s sixth of the season — further extending his title as winningest driver, so far, this year – but it was one of the hardest wins he had to work for.

Starting sixth in the 30-lap feature, Sweet had a host of competitive cars between he and the lead. Also, on the start, Gravel cruised by Donny Schatz on the outside for the lead and the two pulled away to about a straightaway gap on third-place Brian Brown.

It took Sweet two laps to make his way by Terry McCarl for fifth-place, but it was another nine laps before he caught Brown and Daryn Pittman who were battling for third. He made quick work of the two, passing them both with a daring drive through turn three and four, leaving inches between he and Pittman’s car.

Three laps later Sweet made his way by second-place Schatz and set his sight on closing the half-a-straightaway gap between he and Gravel with 15 laps to go. However, Schatz, who hadn’t won in seven races, was still determined to close that gap himself.

With Sweet getting held up by a lap car in turn four, Schatz throttled back by the NAPA Auto Parts No. 49 car and put his Toco Warranty No. 15 car back in second. Sweet had to regroup and find this rhythm riding the bottom of the track again. Two laps later, with a slide job through turns three and four, Sweet cleared Schatz on the front stretch and reclaimed second-place.

He had 12 laps to catch the Mesilla Valley Transportation No. 41 of Gravel.

Could he catch him? With three laps to go, Sweet had Gravel in sight. Two laps to go they were side by side. After Sweet darted by Gravel and a lap car in turn three, Gravel had to throw his car sideways on the exit of turn four to avoid hitting another lap car. From there, with one lap to go, Sweet pulled away to a half second lead and a $10,000 victory.

“I was hunkered down and determined to catch him (Gravel),” Sweet said. “It always helps sometimes to be in second, you can watch where he’s not running and try to find a line.”

Carrying the weight of defeat in every word, runner-up Gravel congratulated Sweet on the win, but knew the race should’ve been his.

“We had the race winning car there,” said Gravel, who set quick time and won his Drydene Heat race. “That’s not our issue. As a driver, I’ve got to put myself in a better spot there. We’ll come back tomorrow hungrier.”

Schatz’s third-place finish was his first podium finish since he won at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway at the end of May.

“You slip a little bit, and someone is going to take advantage of it,” Schatz said. “So, it’s one of them nights.”

Sweet has extended his points lead over Schatz, the 10-time series champion to 60 points.

Jake Martens won the Heartland Steel RaceSaversprint car feature.

To see full results, turn to the next page.

PARIS -- There are matches that count more than others. Games that change dynamics. There are wins that can alter a generation of players and the culture of football for an entire nation. That's where this France team is at right now in the Women's World Cup. As Friday night's (9 p.m. local, 3 p.m. ET) clash against the U.S. approaches, there is a sense this is the moment for France. A sense that the end result will justify the hype.

This is the opportunity for a breakthrough, which would change women's football in France forever.

France has been there before. The 2011 World Cup semifinal against the U.S in Mönchengladbach. The 2012 Olympics semifinal against Japan at Wembley. Each time, France failed.

The Americans were strong in 2011, but the French also let the pressure get to them. The more notable regret came a year later. The French were the better side, but Sarah Bouhaddi made a mistake in net, which cost her team a goal, and Elise Bussaglia missed a penalty late in the game with the score tied 2-2.

Few of the players from 2012 are there today. But Bussaglia and Bouhaddi are, and they will start Friday. They already know this is the moment to make amends from seven years ago. Bussaglia, of course, regrets that penalty miss. Those two losses remain raw. France has been stagnating around the top six to eight in the world but is getting closer to getting a glimpse of a major trophy. Still, the team has a long way to go.

• Megan Rapinoe's greatest heartbreak -- and hope

• France or the U.S. in the Women's World Cup quarterfinals? We debate

• Why the U.S., France are largely responsible for each other's success

Since Corinne Diacre took over as head coach less than two years ago, she has tried to change the mentality. She has made her team stronger -- ready to take on challenges, ready to compete with the best.

"The Brazil win increased our mental strength," Bouhaddi said Tuesday at a press conference. "Since our defeat against England in the She Believes Cup in 2018 [4-1], we have worked on our mental strength. We have realized the qualities of the squad. We have a mental strength, which is an asset, like the U.S. We saw it against Norway and Brazil when they came back in the game, but we still won."

The Lyon goalkeeper tried to play down Friday's game, probably as a means to decrease the pressure. When asked if she and her teammates had been thinking about this game against the U.S. since the draw was made back in December, she said they hadn't.

"It is the quarterfinal that you, the media, wanted, the one you talked a lot about before and during this World Cup," Bouhaddi said. "So you will be happy. For us, it is just a World Cup match. The one against Brazil was as hard as the one we will have on Friday."

Maybe not. The truth is, the players have been talking about this game. They know what it means and what the stakes are. This match is bigger than a World Cup quarterfinal. It will have a lasting effect.

It feels like it is now or never.

On home soil, with the best French team ever assembled, with confidence and mental strength, France has a chance to finally get there. This team believes it has the talent to beat the Americans.

If Friday is a success, the French will be really hard to stop in this tournament and beyond.

If not, questions of mental strength and change will be asked. No pressure or anything.