Rugby: England's efforts to compress the Six Nations Rugby Championship into a six-week block from next season will be resisted on Friday at a meeting to discuss future television coverage of rugby's oldest international tournament.
Representatives of all the unions, including France, who previously made their own broadcasting arrangements, and Italy, who were not covered by the terms of the previous agreement, are gathering to formulate the tender document which will seek a joint satellite/terrestrial deal with effect from the 2002-03 season.
There will be no repeat of the bitter acrimony which led to England being briefly ejected from the championship in January, 1999 but Francis Baron, chief executive of the RFU, was tempting fate yesterday when he spoke of his hopes for a "unified, harmonious approach" to the issue.
Ireland, in particular, are unimpressed at attempts to tinker with the championship's traditional rhythm and are also reluctant to allow the tournament to be shifted from its February-April slot.
"Compressing it wouldn't suit us," said an IRFU source yesterday. "You're talking about playing numbers and resources. We might be going well at the moment but our scope is limited."
Meanwhile, England are preparing a go-it-alone bid to stage the 2007 Rugby World Cup. They are waiting for the tender document to come out on October 31 before formulating their final plans but Baron confirmed yesterday they will definitely bid to host the tournament. That could put England in direct competition with France but the RFU would resist sharing the tournament with them or any of the home unions.
SOCCER: The Republic of Ireland's final Group Two World Cup qualifier against Cyprus at Lansdowne Road on October 6th will have a 6 p.m. kick-off.
After consultation with Portugal, who meet Estonia in their final game on the same day, the Republic and the Portuguese agreed a 6 p.m. start was acceptable to both associations.
As both countries are level on points at the top of the table with 21 points each after nine matches played, the final games in the group required similar kick-off times.
ROWING: "You have lifted the morale of a nation," said the Minister for Sport Dr Jim McDaid at a reception last night in Dublin to honour the three gold medallists at the recent World Rowing Championships.
The chief executive of the Sports Council John Treacy added that Sinead Jennings, Sam Lynch, Tony O'Connor and Gearoid Towey were "superb ambassadors" for the country.
International rowing team manager Michael O'Callaghan paid tribute to the coaches of the four athletes, their families and the other crews at Lucerne who he said did Ireland proud.
The entire attendance at the Croke park suite had earlier stood for a minute's silence to remember the victims of the American atrocities.
