NZ Rugby

Bunting is stepping down after 10 years involved in the Black Ferns Sevens programme, which was capped by winning Olympic gold at the Tokyo Games.

He had long signalled his intention to stand down after the Olympics.

Fellow co-coach Sweeney will take charge as the team prepares to defend both their Commonwealth Games and World Cup title.

Bunting joined the Black Ferns Sevens in 2012 and took the role head coach after the Rio Olympics, where the women won silver.

New Zealand Rugby (NZR) made the announcement on Wednesday after the return of Covid-19 cases in the community in Auckland.

From Tuesday midnight, the government announced that Auckland and Coromandel will remain at level 4 for seven days, while the rest of New Zealand is at level 4 for three days – at this stage.

There were seven community cases as of Wednesday afternoon’s Covid-19 press conference.

The next rounds of the national provincial championship (NPC), Farah Palmer Cup (FPC) and Heartland Championship will be played at a later date, NZR said.

New Zealand powered away in the second half to wrap up this year's series against Australia at a half-full Eden Park on Saturday night.

The win is a record high score against the Wallabies, beating the 54 points scored in Sydney in 2017.

After the All Blacks were 33-25 victors in game one at the same venue last weekend, game two was in the balance at halftime as the Wallabies trailed by just six.

But, as they so often do, the home side turned on the class in the second stanza, adding five tries to the three they had scored in the first half to seal victory.

INEOS will become the official performance partner of the All Blacks, Black Ferns, All Blacks Sevens, Black Ferns Sevens, Māori All Blacks, All Blacks XV and All Blacks Under-20s.

The new deal could be worth in the region of $8 million a year to NZR.

The INEOS logo will appear on the back of the playing shorts and on the front of the Training Jersey of each of those seven teams from 2022. More details on the Performance Partnership will be unveiled later this year.

With regular captain Sam Cane out injured after having surgery on a torn pectoral tendon, All Blacks coach Ian Foster will name a new captain ahead of the opening test against Tonga on July 3.

McCaw, a double World Cup winning captain in 2011 and 2015, has suggested his former All Blacks and Crusaders team-mate Sam Whitlelock as the man for the job until Cane’s return.

“I don’t want to be saying too much, and there’s obviously a few candidates, but there’s no doubt ... Sam Whitelock, who has done it before, has done a good job over the years,” McCaw said.

NZR and the Players' Association are at loggerheads over the Silver Lake deal whereby NZR intends selling a 12.5 percent of its commercial rights to the US private equity for $387 million.

Last week the Association and Forsyth Barr released an alternative proposal to essentially sell a 5 percent stake in the NZR's commercial interests via a share float.

In the end the compromise, with its Pacific cultural twist, was the best that could be managed after Italy withdrew from its scheduled two-test tour of New Zealand because of concerns and difficulties around travelling under Covid-19 protocols.

The All Blacks will meet Tonga and Fiji (twice) in their three July tests over the first three Saturdays of the month, while the Maori will also line up against Samoa in what should be a high-interest, and historic, double-header at Auckland's Mount Smart Stadium on July 3.

A memo from the New Zealand Rugby Players Association has gone out on Friday to directors of NZ Rugby and provincial union chairs detailing advice they had commissioned from Forsyth Barr around an alternative capital raising option.

David Kirk, the association president, is chairman of Forsyth Barr.

NZ Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson swiftly attacked the memo as having leaked confidential information without permission, a breach of trust, and a bid to destroy the Silver Lake proposal.

Next week's New Zealand Rugby AGM will vote on whether to proceed with the proposed $460 million deal which would give Silver Lake a 15 percent stake in the game.

But David Moffett, who was chief executive of New Zealand Rugby between 1996 and 2000, struggles to see where the value for Silver Lake is.

The incident, described as savage and appalling, happened in 2019, in a car, when Guildford was extremely intoxicated.

“The brutality and considerable force behind the blow is illustrated by the nature of the injuries caused to the victim,” Justice Paul Davison QC wrote in a decision released after an appeal in the High Court at Hamilton.

“It was clearly serious offending, and the fact that it took place in the context of the appellant being severely intoxicated by alcohol is no excuse whatsoever.”