St Helens legend Jonny Lomax has announced he is to retire at the end of the Super League season.

The 35-year-old, who has not featured since fracturing his jaw in the defeat by Warrington Wolves in June, has made 388 appearances for Saints, winning five Grand Finals, one Challenge Cup and a World Club Challenge.

He won four caps for Great Britain and 11 for England, including a World Cup final appearance against Australia in 2017.

“Over the last 20 years, I have been able to live out a boyhood dream. Achieving far more than I could ever have imagined. Representing and captaining my hometown club and, of course, the pinnacle, representing England and Great Britain,” he told the club website., external

“I have been fortunate enough to meet some incredible people along the way, experiencing some incredible highs with them. As well as some testing times too.”

He added: “I will retire at the age of 36, grateful for the life the game has given me, knowing I have given it everything I could, with the scars to prove it (19 operations, including 12 knee operations by the age of 26). Despite this, I still feel lucky.

“For those that have supported me throughout it all… I hope I have been able to do you proud.”

Saints chairman Eamonn McManus called Lomax, who made his debut in March 2009 aged 18, “the bravest of brave in the bravest of sports”.

St Helens are seventh in Super League with three games of the campaign to go.

They are two points behind reigning champions Hull KR, who they play in the final game of the regular season, as they look to secure a place in the top six and avoid missing out on the Super League play-offs for the first time.

Earlier in the day, the news emerged of Minnesota moving on from corner Dwight McGlothern. Doing so meant jettisoning a 2023 UDFA.

More recently, the news involved a Vikings receiver who was part of that same cluster of undrafted talent.

Depth pass catcher Jeshaun Jones is being suspended for three games. Losing these games is as a result of violating the “NFL’s Substances of Abuse policy.” Not long after the news emerged, Ben Goessling (The Star Tribune) shared another factoid: “According to Hillsborough County court records, Vikings receiver Jeshaun Jones was arrested in April for refusing to submit to a breath test to determine his blood-alcohol level. He pleaded no contest to a lesser charge of reckless driving last month.”

Vikings Receiver Jeshaun Jones Done for Trio of Games

Quite possibly, the Vikings will opt to ride out the suspension before then making the roster call. Safe to say, though, that this is bad news for the player.

Jones finds himself on the fringe of the roster. At best, he’s the WR6. Sneaking onto the roster would have been due to some mixture of being able to help on specials and being able to grow into a role on offense. On Saturday, Jones did some really good things on the field but saw a dark cloud hang over his day due to a fumble that overshadowed a lot of the good things he did.

Jones tossed 5 catches for 63 yards onto the stat sheet. Most notably, he made an acrobatic catch when he was double covered.

Right now, the Vikings boast the current depth chart at receiver:

• WR1 Justin Jefferson
• WR2 Jordan Addison
• WR3 Jauan Jennings
• WR4 Tai Felton
• WR5 Myles Price
• WR6 Jeshaun Jones
• WR7 Dontae Fleming
• WR8 Dillon Bell
• WR9 Michael Briscoe
• WR10 Trayvon Rudolph
• WR11 Marcus Sanders Jr.
• WR12 Terrill Davis

Offering such a hearty helping of receiver options makes the margin for error thin.

Andrew Krammer (The Star Tribune) adds some more insight about how the offseason competition has been unfolding: “Jones, 26, spent the past two years on the Vikings practice squad and appeared likely to at least make that route again. He’s consistently been around WR6 in camp behind Jefferson, Addison, Jennings, Felton and Price. He can play Friday night in Denver, but suspension begins Aug. 30 thru Sept. 27.”

At the very least, Fleming and Bell will get a minor boost since they’re available while Jones is away. Of the two, Bell may boast a better shot at getting onto the roster due to a unique cluster of abilities that allows him to be used as a gadget guy.

Per Over the Cap, the Vikings had to send over $235,000 in guaranteed money to get Jones back in 2023. Kicking over such meaty money is suggestive of optimism about his potential.

What has then taken place has been an ongoing desire to work with the young receiver. He has mostly lived on the practice squad in 2024 and 2025. Last year, Jones got elevated for some work. Jones earned 7 snaps on specials teams, a spot where he returned a pair of punts for 5 total yards.

Jeshaun Jones is 26. He stands at 6’1″ and weighs 188 pounds. During the summer, Justin Jefferson mentioned him specifically as a receiver who had been improving.

Senior Editor for Vikings Territory & PurplePTSD . Twitter & Bluesky: @VikingsGazette. Email: k.joudry[at]vikingsterritory[dot]com. Canadian. Jude 1:24-25.

Moses Itauma says Filip Hrgovic’s comments are starting to “wind him up” before their IBF heavyweight world title fight on Saturday.

A victory at the O2 Arena would mean 21-year-old Itauma becomes the second youngest heavyweight world champion in history, behind only Mike Tyson.

The British fighter is the favouite going into the contest, but Hrgovic has been trying to taunt his rival by calling him a “kid” and “inexperienced”.

“I tell myself there’s nothing that this Hrgovic guy can do to get in my head but he’s starting to wind me up,” Itauma said.

“In an interview earlier, apparently he said I wake up and I just hug trees. He’s really starting to annoy me.

“In my mind if somebody’s trying to get one up on you, or trying to get in your head, it’s because they’re not confident in themselves. Obviously Hrgovic is a talker.”

Croatia’s Hrgovic, 13 years Itauma’s senior, has suggested that victory for his opponent could have a negative affect on Itauma’s future and that losing the fight would “save his soul”.

Power conferences are moving closer to banning former NFL players from playing within their membership across 64 schools with the SEC following the Big Ten by proposing conference rules to keep professional athletes from returning to play college sports.    

On Tuesday, the Big Ten became the first conference to levy significant penalties when its athletic directors and faculty athletics representatives unanimously approved a ban on former NFL players pursuing a fifth year of eligibility within their league. 

Sources tell CBS Sports the punishment is modeled on the NCAA’s ghost transfer rule. That rule bans coaches from 50% of games and carries a financial penalty on the school equal to 20% of its football budget.

The SEC announced its new policy later Tuesday after a meeting at the conference’s headquarters in Birmingham, Alabama. LSU was considering adding two former NFL players to its roster, but sources told CBS Sports’ John Talty the vote, like the Big Ten’s, was unanimous. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey will have wide-ranging powers to determine punishments for violating the new policy  

The SEC’s ban includes players from the NFL, NBA or WNBA. The Big Ten’s policy only mentioned NFL players.

The Big 12 is mulling a similar ban, and the ACC is set to meet Wednesday to discuss the subject, sources told CBS Sports. 

Big Ten, SEC decide to take action

The decisions by the Big Ten and SEC arrive amid growing legal uncertainty and a recent push from players who’ve signed NFL contracts trying to return to school and even seeking to enter the transfer portal — utilizing recent court rulings allowing players interested in a fifth year of eligibility to return to college football.

The Big Ten made it clear that its ban includes players who signed a professional contract, were on a professional roster, or declared for the NFL Draft without withdrawing.

Previously, under the Big Ten’s Sportsmanship Policy, standard disciplinary measures gave the Big Ten’s commissioner the leeway to levy immediate five-figure fines or hand down suspensions on his own authority, while major escalations — including extended sideline bans or institutional sanctions — required only the executive committee’s rubber stamp.

Such violations will be dealt with swiftly and decisively. That will surely be the case with other conferences if they implement the same rule, as many in the college athletics space expect. Lawsuits could follow from players — and potentially schools — seeking to circumvent these rules, though it appears unlikely to have much impact, at least within the Big Ten, at this point, given the unanimous approval among the 18 schools. 

“The lawsuits are circumventing the NCAA, but now when the league says you can’t do it, now you’re dealing with problems with your conference,” a power conference head coach told CBS Sports.

Do penalties go far enough? 

Several head coaches told CBS Sports they would like to see further punishment, including game forfeitures, if teams play a former professional athlete.

The SEC released a statement Tuesday night urging Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act in September to better protect itself from such developments, but the league, along with other power conferences, is moving toward individual conference-wide rules and enforcement. 

It also potentially signals the first step toward the long-gestating proposals within the Big Ten and SEC to shoulder enforcement policies under a new rules-and-enforcement model separate from the NCAA. The conferences have been preparing self-governance models in case legislation in Washington, D.C. fails to become law later this year.

LSU moved quickly

LSU has been at the center of the recent controversy after Lane Kiffin secured commitments from two former NFL players — defensive tackle ZXavian Harris and former Cleveland Browns tight end Dae’Quan Harris. 

LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry has been supportive of Kiffin’s plan, though it remains to be seen whether he votes alongside his SEC colleagues this week to ban those players from participating in the SEC.

“There are a lot of parts of this I don’t like,” Kiffin said Tuesday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I don’t think professionals should come back to college sports and college football. But in this instance, these are not players who have gone on to play seasons professionally or randomly filed an injunction. This is part of a specific class that was ruled wrong by the NCAA that was supposed to be [five years to play five seasons].”

The NCAA approved a measure allowing players to play up to five seasons within a five-year span, but only for the Class of 2023 and later. That decision led to former players from the Class of 2022 who had exhausted their four years of eligibility to file lawsuits seeking temporary injunctions for a fifth season. 

Some were successful, leading many players to rejoin rosters across the country — though LSU is the only school so far to seek out players that landed on NFL rosters.

Nevertheless, there’s now growing doubt once again among athletic department, coaching and front-office sources about whether those players will actually be able to play at all this season.

It was a night of brutal finishes — and one massive upset — at the Meta Apex. Dana White’s Contender Series concluded it’s third week of fights on Tuesday night with a wild final bout featuring the daughter of a former UFC champion. 

Bella Mir was expected to walk through Alex Apodaca in the main event on her way to the UFC. Except nobody told Apodaca. Mir was anywhere from a -2000 to -3000 favorite heading into the fight with Apodaca expected to make her look good. But Apodaca stuffed many of the Mir takedown attempts throughout the fight and then bloodied Mir’s nose as well. She controlled the action from the opening bell and earned one of the biggest upsets in Contender Series history.

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“That’s crazy, I didn’t look at the odds before, I knew it was bullshit,” Apodaca said after the fight. “I just truly believe that if I stay present and in the moment that nobody’s going to beat me because I’m technical and I’m strong.”

White was so thoroughly impressed that, despite his admitted bias towards Mir coming into the fight due to his relationship with her family and former heavyweight champion Frank Mir, he awarded her a contract for her outstanding performance. That marked the fifth winner of the five fights to earn a contract on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, Guilherme Uriel made the most of his second chance on Contender Series by locking in a nasty standing guillotine choke in the first round against Mario Piazzon. Uriel, who was stopped by rising heavyweight star Josh Hokit last year, did not disappoint in this opportunity by taking Piazzon’s neck almost instantly up against the cage. He never let go and forced Piazzon to tap out.

Plus, Ronald Humphrey put on an incredible show in his bout with Alexis Miranda. Humphrey dropped Miranda with a jab before unleashing brutal ground-and-pound that opened up his opened. Before long, Humphrey had taken his back and locked in a rear-naked choke for a violent finish.

DWCS Week 3 results

• Alex Apodaca def. Bella Mir via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)*
• Guilherme Uriel def. Mario Piazzon via first-round submission (standing guillotine choke)*
• Sean Clancy Jr. def. Gary Balletto via second-round TKO (punches)*
• Ronald Humphrey def. Alexis Miranda via first-round submission (rear-naked choke)*
• Nick Galanti def. Carlos Petruzzella via first-round knockout (punches)*

*Denotes contract won