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Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii will start on the wing for the first time for Australia with Ben Donaldson backed at fly half for their meeting with South Africa in Perth.

Suaalii has played at outside centre and full-back since crossing codes from rugby league in 2024 but switches role as new Wallabies boss Les Kiss seeks to get the best out of the 23-year-old’s athletic talent.

His switch to the left wing sees Hunter Paisami and Len Ikitau paired in midfield, with Donaldson partnered by Ryan Lonergan in the halves.

Brandon Paenga-Amosa splits Angus Bell and Allan Alaalatoa in an experienced front row in the sole change to the starting pack that featured in the drawn Test against Argentina last month.

Kiss opts for six forwards on the bench as he prepares for the physical challenge that the Springboks will bring.

“We’ve had a solid preparation window here in Perth ahead of what’s going to be a massive Test against South Africa,” Kiss, as yet unbeaten in four matches as Australia head coach, said.

“Playing against the number one team in the world focuses the mind and we have worked hard on key areas to meet this challenge and continue to grow our game.”

Australia XV to face South Africa in Perth (Sunday 27 September, 10.45am BST): 1 Angus Bell, 2 Brandon Paenga-Amosa, 3 Allan Alaalatoa; 4 Josh Canham, 5 Jeremy Williams; 6 Rob Valetini, 7 Fraser McReight, 8 Harry Wilson (capt.); 9 Ryan Lonergan, 10 Ben Donaldson; 11 Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, 12 Hunter Paisami, 13 Len Ikitau, 14 Max Jorgensen; 15 Tom Wright.

Replacements: 16 Billy Pollard, 17 Aidan Ross, 18 Taniela Tupou, 19 Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, 20 Tom Hooper, 21 Carlo Tizzano; 22 Tate McDemott, 23 Harry Potter.

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A platitude often floated in the early days of spring training is everyone in a team’s camp might see a chance to contribute at some point during a long season. It is a calming notion when rosters are still forming and hopes are nascent and October feels far away.

Thursday night, with their season and playoff hopes perhaps on the line, the Houston Astros witnessed it manifest.

Two rookies who were not on their opening day roster, who did not debut until midseason, who were at Triple-A earlier this month, propelled the Astros to a 7-5 win over the A’s at Sutter Health Park that held their position in the American League West race with three days remaining.

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With the Rangers winning earlier in the day, the Astros needed to win to stay tied atop the division with Texas, against whom they own the tiebreaker. No two players proved more important to the effort than center fielder Lucas Spence and reliever Miguel Ullola.

Spence, recalled from Triple-A a day earlier amid Houston‘s center-field injuries, playing in his 16th major-league game, hit three home runs. They were his first in the majors. A three-run homer gave Houston an early lead. A solo shot wrested it back in the sixth after the A’s had erased it.

Another in the ninth padded a one-run lead. Spence became the 14th player in Astros history to record a three-homer game, per Baseball Reference. At 23 years and 240 days, he is the second-youngest. Yordan Alvarez, who had one at 22 years and 44 days old in 2019, was the youngest.

Ullola, making his 10th major-league outing, two days after he threw a career-high 33 pitches in Seattle, threw three scoreless relief innings on 35 pitches, creating stability in the middle of a pitching carousel.

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Starter Peter Lambert did not escape the third inning. The Astros trailed 4-3 when Ullola entered for the fifth. They led 5-4 when Ullola ended the seventh by inducing a fly out by Shea Langeliers, unleashing a burst of emotion on the mound. Ullola retired nine of 10 batters he faced.

While he worked, solo home runs by Isaac Paredes and Spence put the Astros back ahead, 5-4. Christian Walker made it 6-4 with a home run in the eighth. Zack Gelof pared the lead back to one with his second home run of the night in the bottom of the inning.

Bryan Abreu, called on for a four-out save after Josh Hader threw 44 pitches a night earlier, retired Jonah Heim to end the eighth with two runners on base. Spence provided an insurance run in the ninth. Abreu returned to the mound and finished a win that felt mandatory.

Mason Barnett goes six for A’s

Barnett, a 25-year-old right-hander, entered with a 7.16 ERA in 44 major-league innings this year. None of his previous 10 major-league starts had lasted six innings. This one did.

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The Astros mustered four hits against Barnett, who walked two batters and struck out six. Two of those hits cleared the fence: Spence’s three-run home run in the second inning and Paredes’ solo home run in the sixth. The latter tied the game after Barnett had retired 11 of his last 12 hitters.

Barnett led with a four-seam fastball that averaged 93.7 mph, throwing it 51% of the time. Astros hitters whiffed on six of 20 swings against it and averaged an 88.1 mph exit velocity on six put into play. Paredes did drive a 3-1 four-seamer onto the roof of the clubhouse beyond left field to forge a 4-4 tie.

After that swing, Barnett retired his next three batters to finish the sixth at 87 pitches. His six innings and eight strikeouts, against an Astros offense that entered with the majors’ second-fewest runs scored since the Aug. 3 trade deadline, were both career highs.

Quick hook for Peter Lambert

Lambert worked his first two innings scoreless. He struck out six of his first 11 batters faced. His outing derailed quickly in the third inning.

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After a leadoff walk turned the A’s lineup over, Lambert struck out his next two batters. Shea Langeliers singled after overturning a called third strike with an ABS challenge. Jeff McNeil then hit a 2-2 fastball into the visitors’ bullpen. Lambert spun around and put his hands on his head in apparent disbelief.

McNeil’s swing tied the game. Two pitches later, Gelof hit a changeup 413 feet to straightaway center field to put the A’s ahead. A single by Donovan Walton marked the fourth straight hit against Lambert and ended his night. He recorded eight outs on 62 pitches.

It marked the third straight game the Astros’ starter did not complete the third. Cristian Javier threw two innings Tuesday before exiting with a groin injury. Ethan Pecko was chased in the third inning Wednesday in Seattle.

The outing was Lambert’s shortest of the season. He had completed at least five innings in all but four of his previous 27 starts. The quick hook likely reflected the magnitude of this game, but it could potentially also keep Lambert in play for an appearance later in the series.

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Big swings from Lucas Spence

Houston’s embattled outfield is limping to the finish line. Astros outfielders entered Thursday with a .651 OPS this season, the majors’ lowest mark. Center fielder Daulton Varsho, the Astros’ lone trade deadline addition, landed on the injured list Thursday with a wrist ailment. Outfielder Brice Matthews returned to the IL on Wednesday after aggravating the left knee that sidelined him for two months.

Matthews’ IL placement ushered Spence back to the majors. Spence had played in 15 games for Houston prior to Thursday, going 6-for-40 with one extra-base hit.

After one-out singles by Walker and Cam Smith in the second, Spence drove a changeup from Barnett an estimated 429 feet to right field at 105.8 mph off the bat for his first major-league home run. Spence has 24 home runs in 859 career minor-league at-bats, so power is not his forte. His first with the Astros lent production from a depleted position group that has sorely lacked it.

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His next two created a historic night and kept the Astros on pace in a division race.

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This article originally published at Rookie Lucas Spence hits 3 home runs as Astros beat Athletics to stay tied for AL West lead.

Barcelona’s sporting director Deco said the club has no interest in pursuing Manchester United teenager JJ Gabriel.

Gabriel, 15, travelled to the Spanish city after informing United that he wanted to leave Old Trafford earlier this month.

Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Paris St-Germain are among the clubs reportedly keen on securing his signature.

“There’s nothing to say about this boy,” Deco said at a news conference.

“It’s normal we always have players linked with us. There’s a huge market for that, even when they are young.

“We are not interested in any player in his situation. I’m not sure what’s happening, and if he’s still a Manchester United player. We are not involved in that.

“First of all, we need to understand how the situation is before we try to do something. To speak about young, teenage players, it is not our business.”

Gabriel has not trained at United since scoring a hat-trick on his Uefa Youth League debut on 10 September.

Tournament rules prevent him from playing for a side other than United in this season’s competition.

But if he obtains a European Union passport through either his father – a former Republic of Ireland international – or mother, who has Greek-Cypriot heritage, he could join a club in the EU when he turns 16 on 6 October.

Last week, United manager Michael Carrick urged for people to be “careful and sensible” about the amount of exposure and scrutiny given to the youngster.

A metric evaluating the strength of a team’s opponents within their conference will have heightened visibility and depth during the College Football Playoff selection process this season, CBS Sports has learned.

The tweak comes entering the third year of the 12-team CFP and as the disparity in conference schedules comes into greater focus following conference realignment.

A similar metric has been available to selection committee members in the past. However, it will be presented in a new fashion during this year’s selection process with an increased emphasis on the differences in schedule strength that can exist within a single league.

With the rise of megaconferences with at least 16 teams, teams’ scheduling strength can vary widely, creating large disparities in final records. Duke, for example, reached the ACC Championship Game after playing only one team ranked in the AP Top 25. Texas Tech is in a similar position in 2026 after beating No. 25 Houston, the only ranked team on its schedule. 

However, it’s unclear whether the metric will have much real-world impact, given that strength of schedule was already a meaningful data point considered in the process. Strength of schedule, head-to-head competition and outcomes against common opponents are set to retain their importance during this year’s selection process.

The metric evaluating conference opponent strength will help further contextualize the power of a conference when comparing two similar teams. Importantly, it will provide a measure of how tough a conference schedule was, even in regard to teams within the same league. 

The metric is a slightly strange one for Notre Dame, which does not play a conference schedule and must be evaluated as an at-large. However, it will still be compared against other teams in typical strength-of-schedule conversations.

2026 College Football Playoff bracket projection: Ole Miss climbs after signature win over LSU

John Talty

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Answering SEC complaints

CFP staff members met with SEC coaches during the offseason at spring meetings. The meeting was unexpectedly tense, as coaches seemed to regret the move to nine conference games without an expansion of the postseason. 

“Now, you could say there may be regret in there going to nine,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart told CBS Sports. “I’m not blaming the committee, I’m blaming the system, because I don’t know that they can recognize and acknowledge, truly, and say strength of schedule matters and you’re putting a team with one more loss in their column over a team that might have one less and they play the same schedule.”

The conference opponent strength metric, along with a revised strength-of-schedule, is likely designed to assuage their concerns. Four of the seven at-large selections were given to SEC schools last season. The group failed to win a single College Football Playoff game against an opponent from another Power Four league. 

The coaches specifically expressed anger that Big 12 member BYU — which didn’t even make the playoff — finished ahead of Texas and Vanderbilt in the rankings. The Cougars were several spots ahead of both SEC schools in the most commonly cited strength-of-record metric, though the committee has its own internal metrics it declines to share. 

Additionally, BYU finished with one fewer regular-season loss than Vanderbilt and two fewer than Texas. The Cougars picked up a second in the Big 12 Championship Game.

On its face, the College Football Playoff’s decision appears to be built around appeasing the SEC’s insecurity. While the new metric will reinforce that top-to-bottom, the SEC is the most powerful conference in the sport — a status few really question — it gives a seemingly superfluous metric to emphasize it.

/ @lockedoncollegefootball  

Ask columnist Jason Williams anything − sports or non-sports – and he’ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on Cincinnati.com. Email: jwilliams@enquirer.com

Message: What’s gotten into you? You have been the biggest Bengals critic in the Cincinnati media for years. Now you sound like a homer. Why the sudden change in your columns?

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Reply: You said the magic word: change.

Bengals ownership changed how they built a roster going into this season, and they deserve to be praised for doing so. Ownership showed a concerted effort to win by trading for Dexter Lawrence and investing $125 million in defensive free agents. That rebuilt defense has helped the Bengals jump out to a 2-0 start against teams that many projected to make the playoffs.

Bengals injuries Steelers Why the Bengals might need multiple players to fill in for Andrei Iosivas

What’s there to criticize right now?

I spent years criticizing Bengals ownership for not changing, so it’s only right that I praise the Brown/Blackburn family when they did. My job is to hold public and public-facing officials and institutions accountable and criticize when it’s warranted. It’s also to praise when it’s warranted. That’s the job of an opinion writer. Again, it’s not personal.

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This is how it should be: Our teams making legitimate efforts to be better and actually try to win championships. Amazing that the Bengals are being held up as the shining example of going-for-it in this city after all those years of ownership doing things the same way and caring more about profits. Going all-in to win should be the norm. Winning is great for civic pride. Didn’t we all feel a little better about life during the Bengals’ run to the Super Bowl in the 2021 season?

Winning and making money aren’t mutually exclusive. Spend money to make money. They both should be of utmost importance to every sports franchise owner. Otherwise, sell the team. Bengals ownership bought into that in the offseason, realizing that still trying to pinch pennies would waste the generational talents of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase.

Magnificent job, Mike Brown. Kudos, Katie Blackburn. Now the Bengals just need Joe Burrow to stay healthy and a deep playoff run could be forthcoming this season.

Side note: I don’t like to compare the Bengals and Reds. They operate in two different economic models. But generally, don’t you find the role reversal between the approaches of the teams’ ownership fascinating?

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It’s the Reds who are now unwilling to change. They refuse to sacrifice a certain profit margin for going all out to win. And it’s the Reds, for decades beloved in this community, who have gotten really bad at public relations.

Sad to see what the Reds have become under Phil Castellini’s leadership.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Why I’ve changed my tone about Cincinnati Bengals | Williams

India continue to hold the upper hand midway through the first half, leading Nepal 14-8. Bonus points have played a key role in the defending champions’ start, with India collecting four compared to Nepal’s one. However, Nepal have hit back with a crucial super tackle on Sonali, earning two valuable points to reduce the deficit. India still lead comfortably, 15-10.

The 2026 season has featured several strong performances from high-profile players on lucrative MLB contracts. However, breakout performances by players on modest deals have also caught fans’ attention.

Here, we take a look at 10 players who have made a significant impact on their team’s performance this season (WAR) and provided the best value for money:

#1 Pete Crow-Armstrong (Chicago Cubs)

Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong leads the league with a 10.6 WAR (according to FanGraphs). The All-Star slugger is the favorite for the NL MVP title over Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.

Although Crow-Armstrong signed a six-year, $115 million extension before the 2026 season, his deal takes effect from next season. He is on an $894,000 salary this season, making him the best value-for-money player in 2026.

#2 Jacob Misiorowski (Milwaukee Brewers)

Milwaukee Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski has shattered records with his fastballs this season. His 6.5 WAR is among the highest for a starting pitcher this year. He has posted a 15-5 record with a league-best 1.86 ERA over 29 starts.

Misiorowski, who has recorded the fastest pitch by a starting pitcher and the most 100 mph+ pitches in a game in MLB history this season, was selected by the Brewers in the 2022 MLB draft. He is on a one-year $788,300 contract for the 2026 season and is due a lucrative extension.

#3 Cam Schlittler (New York Yankees)

New York Yankees ace Cam Schlittler is having a breakthrough season and is the favorite for the AL Cy Young Award. His 6.1 WAR is only second to Misiorowski among pitchers this season. His 1.95 ERA is also bettered only by the Brewers ace.

Despite being one of the best pitchers in the league with a 14-6 record over 33 starts, Schlittler is on an $801,425 salary as part of his one-year pre-arbitration contract with the Yankees. He is also expected to land a multi-year extension after the season.

#4 Ben Rice (New York Yankees)

Cam Schlittler’s teammate, Ben Rice, is another New York Yankees player having a breakthrough season. Amid injuries to franchise stalwarts Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, Rice has led the offense with a career-high 41 home runs.

His 4.3 WAR is the second-best for a Yankees player behind Schlittler this season. Rice, who is among the leading home run getters in the American League this year, is on a one-year, $845,800 pre-arbitration contract for the 2026 season.

#5 Junior Caminero (Tampa Bay Rays)

Tampa Bay Rays slugger Junior Caminero displayed his power-hitting with 45 home runs last season. The Rays star backed that up with another productive season at the plate in 2026. He leads the Rays with a 5.1 WAR for the season.

Caminero is the joint-top home run hitter in the American League with 41 homers in 2026. The Rays slugger, who helped the AL East team to the division title this season, is on a one-year, $794,800 pre-arbitration contract.

#6 Elly De La Cruz (Cincinnati Reds)

Two-time All-Star infielder Elly De La Cruz is having a career year at the plate for the Cincinnati Reds. Cruz, who has established himself as one of the league’s most dynamic players, is on the verge of a historic 30-30 season. He is on 29 home runs and 29 steals.

De La Cruz’s 6.5 WAR is among the best for infielders this season. The Reds shortstop is one of MLB’s most coveted players and is on a one-year, $800,000 pre-arbitration contract for 2026. He is arbitration-eligible next year.

#7 Miguel Vargas (Chicago White Sox)

Chicago White Sox infielder Miguel Vargas has been an offensive force this season. Vargas, who is in his second season with the franchise, has led Chicago with a career-high 33 home runs and a 5.2 WAR.

Vargas was traded to the White Sox by the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024 and earned his first All-Star selection this year. He is on a one-year, $805,700 contract for 2026.

#8 James Wood (Washington Nationals)

Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood has reached the 30 home run mark for a second consecutive season in 2026. He is batting a career-high .262 and leads the team with 104 runs. His 3.8 WAR is only bettered by Cade Cavalli on the Nationals.

His 104 runs are the third-most this season behind Chicago Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong (119) and Seattle Mariners star Randy Arozarena (109). He is on an $806,900 contract for 2026.

#9 Hunter Goodman (Colorado Rockies)

Colorado Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman has smashed a career-high 39 home runs this season, crossing the 30 HR mark for a second consecutive year.

Goodman, who is among the leading home run hitters this season, is on a one-year, $810,000 contract for 2026. Only Jake McCarthy has a better WAR than Goodman (2.5) for the Rockies this season.

#10 Braxton Ashcraft (Pittsburgh Pirates)

While reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes has struggled for consistency in 2026, his Pittsburgh Pirates teammate Braxton Ashcraft has established himself as a reliable starting option.

Ashcraft leads the team with 14 wins and a 3.65 ERA over 28 starts in 2026. His 3.6 WAR is the second-best for a Pirates pitcher behind Skenes. He is on a one-year, $795,100 pre-arbitration contract for 2026.