These are some of the stories making the news on the evening of Saturday September 24.
New Zealand rout Wallabies to win title
New Zealand eased the pressure on their under-fire coach Ian Foster as they lifted the Rugby Championship.
Foster's side had put one hand on the trophy with a convincing 40-14 victory over Australia in their Bledisloe Cup clash in Auckland at the start of the day.
READ MORE: Leigh Halfpenny is nailing goal kicks again and his Wales team-mates are absolutely loving it
The early result meant South Africa needed to beat Argentina by more than 40 points later in the day to pip them. The All Blacks led the table by five points with a points difference 39 better than that of the Springboks.
The Springboks duly claimed their tea-time victory, but the 38-21 triumph wasn't enough to wrest the title away from New Zealand.
Australia had started the day with a chance of taking the title themselves but they were unable to repeat the performance of their narrow - and controversial - loss to the All Blacks last week.
Richie Mo'unga opened the scoring with a 20th-minute penalty and converted after Will Jordan followed with a fine try. Australia then conceded a penalty try before half-time, with New Zealand tightening their grip in the second half as Sam Whitelock went over from close range and Codie Taylor also crossed. Australia scored some consolation points near the end.
World champions South Africa started well in their game against the Pumas, but the second-half was a war of attrition at times and Argentina were never going to roll over and let the Springboks take the title on points difference.
Winless Scarlets ship 55 points
Dwayne Peel's Scarlets are still seeking their first win of the season after shipping more than 50 points in losing at home to Ulster.
Having opened their campaign with a home draw against rivals Ospreys, this time the Scarlets went down 55-39 as scrum-half John Cooney scored 30 points for the visitors in a 12-try Llanelli thriller.
It left Peel saying: "It was a helter-skelter game, high intensity, a lot of tries and we were six points down with five minutes to go.
"There are discipline areas we need to tidy up. We were second best in the fundamentals of the game which I am disappointed about and that's what has ultimately won Ulster the game."
Cooney scored two tries in Ulster's win, Alan O'Connor, Martin Moore, Marcus Rea, Billy Burns and Tom O'Toole the others, with Cooney converting the seven and also kicking two penalties.
Dafydd Hughes crossed twice for Scarlets while Jonathan Davies, Ryan Conbeer and Fifita were also on the try-scoring sheet. Costelow converted three of them and kicked a penalty, with Rhys Patchell knocking over a penalty and a conversion.
The Scarlets next head to Italy to take on Benetton, before another derby clash against Cardiff the following weekend.
Bears move top
Bristol moved top of the Gallagher Premiership and confirmed their best start to a league season since 1999 by beating London Irish 40-36 at Ashton Gate.
The west country club matched a hat-trick of wins 23 years ago as they saw off Irish in bonus-point fashion.
England prop Ellis Genge followed his try double against Bath a fortnight ago with another touchdown, and there were also first-half scores for hooker Will Capon, wing Luke Morahan and scrum-half Harry Randall.
Irish were indebted to flashes of brilliance from England international Henry Arundell, who created their opening try and then scored one of his own following an 80-metre breakaway.
But Bristol shaded it after Irish had clawed it back to 26-24, with Jake Heenan and Max Lahiff claiming tries in quick succession, while fly-half AJ MacGinty kicked five conversions.
Wales young guns double over England
Wales rugby league under 16s beat England Lions 8-6 in Wigan to complete the home and away double over their rivals, having already beaten them 22-14 in Llanelli earlier this year.
Whilst it was a low score, it wasn’t an error-strewn or weather affected game, but because the two defences were outstanding.
England went 6-0 up at half-time after Oliver Smart finally broke through and Thomas Papworth converted.
Wales levelled 15 minutes into the second half when Jayden Grey dived over and Ethan Paterson successfully converted.
The winning kick came on 62 minutes when Paterson stepped up to land a penalty.
READ MORE:
WRU demand strong Wales results this season as time for experimenting over
Australia claim World Rugby admit Mathieu Raynal got time-wasting call wrong
