brimming with confidence and national pride. with a record—equalling 129 caps, alun wynjones is well versed in harnessing the passion of an occasion like this, and after two minutes, the welsh fans were singing again — jonathan davies allowed to saunter over the line. dan biggar usually finishes these in his sleep, but he would have plenty of chances to make amends, as wales scored four tries in a blistering first half. georgia's strength is in their pack, but only in the second half did they show it. wales, though, were able to wrestle back control and finished with a george north flurry, with their sixth try. this was a game of contrasting halves for wales, but still they will be very satisfied to leave here unscathed, and with a comfortable win behind them, ahead of that huge game in pool d against australia in six days‘ time. katie gornall, bbc news in toyota.

that's it. newsnight will be on bbc two. emily is in brighton tonight and will have the latest analysis on the labour conference, and those lively debates on brexit we were telling you about earlier. now on bbc one, time for the news where you are. hello and welcome to sportsday — i'm sarah mulkerrins. your headlines tonight: wales cruise to a winning start at the rugby world cup — but it's tale of two halves against georgia. and the awards go to lionel messi and megan rapinoe — the fifa best footballers of the year are crowned tonight in milan. and england ring the changes for the upcoming tour of new zealand —

with some big names of the summer missing out. hello and welcome to sportsday. good evening, welcome along. a good first half — but a messy second. the verdict of wales head coach warren gatland — after his side secured a bonus point victory over georgia — in their first match of the rugby world cup. six tries they scored in the 15—14 win. and they now top their pool in japan. patrick gearey reports. enter the dragon. wales have felt the weight of waiting. in the run—up to this world cup, assistant coach rob howley has been sent home. off the field, the tournament has not had an ideal start. on it, things seem more straightforward. in fact, jonathan davies did not even encounter a georgian tag on his way

to scoring his first try, two minutes in. wales were fuelled by a pent—up energy which, when coupled with all 16 stone ofjustin tipuric, is hard to resist. many feel this could be wales‘ best chance to win a world cup and they began to motor in toyota. jet powered justin adams hurtled through georgia, three welsh tries in less than 20 minutes. they had the bonus point by half—time, liam williams says this has been the best rugby of his career. maybe it is just getting started. 29—0 at the break. georgia have hopes ofjoining the six nations in the future. when they get a chance, they make their case with force. somewhere in there was a mamukashvili, and somewhere in there, the ball was grounded for a try. they wrestled a second later in the half but even though wales had lost momentum, they always had breathing space and chasing space. thomas williams got there in the nick of time. having shown off his quickstep, now for the warts. he need a partner so george north finished thejob, slaloming his way to try number six.

they finished with a traditional bow. maybe not perfectly in sync but if things go to plan, they will have nearly six weeks to practice. patrick gearey, bbc news. we know as a team that we tend to get better as the tournaments go on and we build on confidence, so pleased with the start today, and there is a lot of room for us to improve for next week and a few things to tidy up on, with the breakdown and a few things. yeah, that will be our focus for this week. barcelona's lionel messi won the fifa best men's player of the year this evening in milan, while usa's megan rapinoe won the women's award. it's the 6th time messi has won the award, he beat cristiano ronaldo and virgilvan djik. england's lucy bronze and american alex morgan missed out to rapinoe — she scored 6 goals for the usa on the way

to their world cup victory. and also became a vocal advocate for many of the issues facing women footballers during the world cup — and continued that theme this evening in her acceptance speech. i feel like, if we ifeel like, if we really i feel like, if we really want to have meaningful change, what i think is most inspiring would be if everybody other than... if they were as outraged as racism as they were. if everyone else was that. if eve ryo ne if everyone else was that. if everyone was as outraged about homophobia as the lgbtq players. if eve ryo ne homophobia as the lgbtq players. if everyone was as outraged about the lack of investment women grain other than just lack of investment women grain other thanjust women lack of investment women grain other than just women that would be the most inspiring thing to me. fifa president gianni infantino presented both those awards and while in milan, took time to address the issue of racism in football. we have witnessed, in the italian

championship, an episode of racism. this is not acceptable any more. we have to say this. applause. we have to say no. no to racism. in whatever form. no to we have to say no. no to racism. in whateverform. no to racism in football, no to racism in society. but we don't have just to say it, we have to fight against it. we have to kick racism out once and for all and in the rest of the world. out of football and out of society. out of football and out of society. after winning the champions league injune it was a successful night for liverpool. while virgil van dyke missed out on the best man's award — his teammate allison won best goalkeeper. jurgen klopp was given the best manager award ahead of manchester city's pep guardiola and tottenham's mauricio pochettino. klopp dedicated the win to his players.

i have to say thank you to my outstanding club, liverpool fc. who doesn't love it has no heart. and i have to thank my team because, as coach, you can only be as good as your team is. coach, you can only be as good as your team is. let's have a look at some of the other stories making today's sports news. britain's dan evans is through to the last 16 of the chengdu open but kyle edmund is out though — and he's parted company with his coach mark hilton. edmund's defeat this morning was his fourth in a row. he'll be assisted in the short term by colin beecher, who coached him when he was in his late teens. rugby league's international governing body have denied giving clearance for israel folau to return to the sport. folau was sacked by australian rugby union's ruling body after writing on social media "hell awaits" gay people. he said he was switching codes again to play for tonga at next month's oceania cup. and emily muskett has become britain's first medallist at a world weightlifting championship since 1994, with ‘clean and jerk‘ bronze in thailand.

muskett works three jobs and has benefitted from uk sport‘s ‘aspiration fund‘, set up to help athletes in some unfunded sports qualify for tokyo 2020. cricket news now. after a busy summer, england are back in action again, in just over month‘s time — they‘ve named their squads for the upcoming tour of new zealand. the big name to miss out from the test side isjonny bairstow. our sports correspondent — joe wilson — has more for us from lord‘s. i thinkjohnny has the potential to bea i thinkjohnny has the potential to be a top top test match player. he‘s already one of the best in the world. seven years ago he was picked to pay as much cricket as a —— for england. once he has had a bit of a reset, he has had a very busy summer

and it is an opportunity for him to step back for a moment, reset, work on some things and come back better. i notice yourjob to name the spot. you don‘t decide where players fight in? it seems to me there is a potential here? we can reveal thatjoe root wants to bat form. that has implications for selection. three people have to bat above him. ifjoe says he is going to bat for then there are three spots there. you can obviously see from the make—up of the squad that the batting is tilted towards top batsmen in terms of the number of players we have got and that is perfectly logical for the captain batting at four which is something we wa nt batting at four which is something we want to support. there‘s been plenty of attention on england‘s failings with the bat this summer. so they‘ve turned to some fresh faces. ollie pope actually played for england last summer, but has really impressed with surrey. he can keep wicket too.

dominic sibley of warwickshire is just below him in the batting averages and lots of people have called for him to have a chance. and kent‘s zak crawley is thought of as one for the future. he could be an option to open the batting. the world atheltic‘s governing body have confirmed that russia will be banned from the world championships which start at the end of the week. russian atheletes were suspended in 2015 after a report found evidence of widespread doping in the sport. our sports editor dan roan explains why this came about and whether russia could be banned from next year‘s olympics. they have been looking at a database that was blown by a whistle—blower. both should marry up and there are some discrepancies. other that is because the whistle—blower fabricated some of this informational because certain files have been deleted by the russian authorities before they were