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Rugby Union: Head coach Mike Ford (picture) has left RC Toulon by mutual consent with fellow Englishman Richard Cockerill taking over until the end of the season, the French rugby club said yesterday. Ford, 51, had been given the job last October but failed to make an impact as Toulon were knocked out of the Champions Cup quarter-finals.

Basketball: North Carolina made up for last year’s title-decider heartbreak by putting together a late run to overhaul Gonzaga 71-65 in the final of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament. Trailing 65-63 with less than two minutes remaining, North Carolina ended the contest with an 8-0 spurt to pull clear of their fellow top-seeded opponents. The triumph at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona came in sharp contrast to the scenes of utter dejection a year ago when the Tar Heels fell to Villanova on a buzzer-beater in Houston, Texas.

Tennis: British number one Johanna Konta has withdrawn from this week’s Volvo Car Open in Charleston, South Carolina, citing a right shoulder injury. Konta, winner of the weekend’s Miami Open, would have been the number two seed in the WTA event. “I was battling a slight shoulder injury and sickness during Miami which has taken hold,” Konta said in a statement. Konta, the world number seven, won the biggest title of her career when she beat Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 6-3 in the Miami final on Saturday.

Athletics: World and 2012 Olympics long-jump champion Greg Rutherford will be back in competitive action this summer as he prepares to defend his IAAF title in London. Rutherford, 30, is in training – after his winter spent partly as a contestant in last year’s edition of the BBC’s popular light-entertainment programme Strictly Come Dancing – and is targeting a rehearsal for the world championships at the Muller Anniversary Games at the London Stadium on July 9.