RUGBY NEWS:RICHIE McCAW admits he will be an interested observer of Dan Carter's six-month sojourn with Perpignan, but the New Zealand captain does not have the "inclination" to follow his All Black team-mate to Europe.
"I haven't started considering it at all," said McCaw. "It hasn't really gone through my mind - I'm pretty happy with what I'm doing at the moment and I haven't really got the inclination to go there."
• A NEW trophy honouring Edmund Hillary, the first man to scale Mount Everest, will be contested whenever the All Blacks and England play each other, the New Zealand Rugby Union said yesterday.
The trophy will be known as the Hillary Shield and will be played for the first time when the teams meet at Twickenham on November 29th. Hillary's widow, June, will present the trophy to the winning team.
• GEORGE SMITH won the John Eales medal as Australia's best player for 2008. The openside flanker became the first player to win the award twice after his previous success at the inaugural awards in 2002. Smith was a runaway winner of the award, decided by votes from players involved in Test matches over the past 12 months. Number eight Wycliff Palu finished runner-up for the second year in a row
