Here are the latest rugby headlines on Thursday, December 29.
Former Lions join brain injury legal action
A player involved in the current legal action against some of rugby's governing bodies over brain injuries has warned that people will be "shocked" by the high-profile players also taking action.
Former international Lenny Woodard, who has early-onset dementia, said a number of former British and Irish Lions are now part of the action against World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union and the Rugby Football Union for alleged negligence.
"At some point the players list will become public and you're going to be shocked at some of the players on there," Mr Woodard told BBC Wales.
"As far as the UK players are concerned, you're talking British Lions."
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He added: "We talk about Ryan Jones, there are players on that level, big names, who are part of the proceedings at the moment, which is a terrible shame as they are struggling as well."
Tipuric returns to training
Justin Tipuric is back in training and the Ospreys are hopeful he will feature in their New Year's Day clash with Cardiff at the Arms Park.
The Wales openside was set to start against the Scarlets on Boxing Day, but was forced to withdraw just before kick-off with a back injury. The late disruption made little difference to Toby Booth's side, as they went on to secure a bonus point in a 34-14 victory at the Swansea.com Stadium.
Booth is now hopeful that his captain will be fit to take on Dai Young's side on Sunday.
"He trained today [Wednesday] so we're hopeful that he'll be back involved," he said. "We have to see how it reacts, but the signs are good. Everyone else made it through last weekend, I believe."
English Premiership 'so different' without relegation
Exeter boss Rob Baxter predicts the Gallagher Premiership will continue to produce an abundance of shock results while there is no threat of relegation.
Round 13 saw the top three sides - Saracens, Sale and Harlequins - fall to the bottom three with London Irish, Newcastle and Bristol prevailing in defiance of the form guide. Exeter themselves almost came unstuck against underperforming Bath on Christmas Eve but clung on to leave their west-country rivals propping up the table.
Relegation will not return until the 2024-2025 season at the earliest and Baxter believes that removing it has encouraged teams to play with greater ambition.
"The league is so different without relegation - people probably don't quite realise that," Baxter said. "A perfect example is when we've been to Newcastle when they've been in the bottom two. It's very hard to play with the ambition and desire that they play with now because there's so much hanging on the result.
"We've won some pretty tight games against teams that have been in the bottom two because the game means so much that as it gets to that pressure 10 minutes at the end, they start to make more mistakes than you do. That's actually changed a bit and what you're seeing is that teams at the bottom of the league can get on with it. They're not looking over their shoulder, they're looking upwards all the time. So now you're never in a scenario where a team aren't coming after you.
"Some teams in the relegation zone would rest players when they came up against a side they didn't think they would beat because the next game was against a relegation rival. That doesn't happen any more because there's no need to. So I think these competitive results are going to happen more and more often. You'll see an increasing amount of them."
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