Tonight’s rugby news as All Blacks coach open to ripping it up by changing big rule and England star’s French move still on

Here are your rugby evening headlines for Thursday 27 April.

England hooker’s French move still on

England hooker Luke Cowan-Dickie’s move to Montpellier is still on, according to Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter.

Reports from France suggested that the French champions could call off the transfer after the British and Irish Lion supposedly missed a medical after going drinking the night before.

“There’s been something that’s been massively blown out of proportion,” Baxter told BBC Radio Devon.

“I think he’s popping over to France again just to finish off a couple of bits the French would like to investigate around a couple of his injuries. But he hasn’t failed a medical, he hasn’t not turned up for a medical.

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“I’m not saying it is completely pie-in-the-sky, because everything has a little bit of something behind it, but as far as he has not turned up and they’ve torn up the contract and thrown it away, that 1srcsrc% is not the case.

“Did he have a drink in a bar at some stage? I would say probably yes, outside of that there’s probably a fair bit of journalistic licence [that] has probably been added to a few things that have happened.”

New All Blacks coach open to picking overseas players

Incoming New Zealand head coach Scott Robertson is open to selecting overseas players for the All Blacks.

Under the current policies, a player can not represent All Blacks while contracted to a team outside New Zealand, but those policies could change when Robertson takes over from Ian Foster after the World Cup.

“One thing they [NZR] have said to me is a bit of forward thinking and challenging the norm here