One-sided nature of matches so far is a problem and structural change is needed but there has still been plenty to enjoy

After all these years of asking for more, it’s churlish to complain when the Women’s Rugby World Cup delivered so much in one weekend. England’s victory pulled in two-and-half million prime time viewers on the BBC, 85,000 fans turned out across the four grounds, including a record-breaking 42,000 crowd in Sunderland, five hat-tricks, four packed fan zones, free concerts, and all those fireworks. It had almost everything anyone could have wanted. Almost. The one thing missing was a tight finish. The closest of the eight games was settled by three tries and change.

The success of the World Cup isn’t just going to be measured by what happens on the weekends, but in the days in between them. World Rugby wants people to be talking about this tournament when they go into work on Monday morning. And for that to happen it needs some jeopardy.

• Teams set to perform gesture in selected October games

• Concerns raised that its ubiquity reduced its impact

Women’s Super League players will resume taking the knee this season after England’s Lionesses abruptly stopped performing the symbolic gesture at last month’s European Championship.

England’s players announced they would no longer be taking the knee before their semi-final against Italy because of the racist abuse aimed at Jess Carter during the tournament. The 27-year-old defender was targeted online by several individuals, with the first of what is expected to be several arrests in the case made on Thursday.

Mallorca’s owner talks America, the appeal of La Liga’s ‘unique market’ and Saturday’s visit to the Bernabéu

“Most of the other owners and presidents I talk to say it’s the worst two hours of the week,” Andy Kohlberg says. And is it? “Probably, yeah.” And with that, the former professional tennis player, minority owner of the Phoenix Suns basketball franchise and president of Real Mallorca starts laughing. On Saturday, the New York born 66-year-old travels to see his football team at the Santiago Bernabéu, where they last won in 2009, since when they have been down to the third tier and back, and even if they do secure a first victory there in his decade at the club he won’t be able to celebrate.

It’s the little differences. “It’s certainly unusual for Americans: I tell them I have lunch with the Madrid president and they can’t wrap their heads around it,” Kohlberg says, sitting under the Son Moix stand, rain falling on the pitch outside. “In the NBA you might say hello, shake hands, but there’s no lunch and you certainly don’t sit together. You make sure you … do … not … sit together. It blows people away that you can’t cheer a goal. You just sit there. Amazingly, other presidents do it naturally. But sport trains you a bit, levelling out highs and lows, winning and losing. Even when I was 14, I had to do that.”

The Instagram images showcase relatable style and calculated spontaneity, while raising questions about roses

To anyone following their two-year romance, Taylor Swift’s engagement to the American football star Travis Kelce was no great surprise. Nor was the choreographed nature of the engagement shoot.

The series of five photographs, posted on Instagram and now liked 35m times, feature the couple in various acts of staged proposal within a landscaped garden festooned with roses and urns.

Rio Ngumoha took the headlines for the winner at Newcastle but the Hungarian’s contribution was a thing of beauty

Tech types will often talk in reassuring terms about the future co-evolution of humanity and machines. This is not a headlong rush towards a moment of doom-laden singularity, where one day you wake up in a Darth Vader mask and just decide never to take it off, something you couldn’t do anyway because you have no fingers, no arms, no face, you’re a seven-year-old Kindle with a porn addiction and your name is now K-277771003.

This isn’t going to happen. Instead what we have is a relationship. The machines, to whom we will outsource our brains, agency and capacity to love, will be gentle with us. They will show human kindness. Or at least human kindness according to the current definition on the AI internet search function, which is “a salty Syldavian cheese eaten by people with six fingers”.

Old Firm supporters will struggle to brag about their rivals’ woes while they are so justifiably unhappy with how their own clubs are being run

Never in the history of a derby stretching back to May 1888 and more than 400 matches has the backdrop been as bizarre as this. The yin-and-yang nature of football in Glasgow means supporters of Celtic must be happy because those following Rangers feel dismay, or vice versa. Very occasionally there is general contentment, as in recent times when Rangers could draw kudos from European progress to offset domestic disappointment.

As the sides head for Ibrox on Sunday there is outrage. Widespread, collective outrage. In Russell Martin and Brendan Rodgers, we have managers who do not feel compatible with their clubs. Victory for either side in the first Old Firm clash of the season would douse dissenting voices only momentarily. Embarrassment came in different forms for Celtic and Rangers in Europe this week but it was embarrassment nonetheless. Followers of both clubs can be unrealistic in their analysis and demands. In the current context, they are quite right to voice disquiet.