The Irish management will not divulge any decision to award some additional, full-time contracts for national squad members until late next week. This will probably be in conjunction with the announcement of the Irish team to play New Zealand, which now looks like being deferred until the weekend after next. Irish manager Pat Whelan is expected to make an official announcement regarding the extent of the injury to the Lions lock Jeremy Davidson. The player himself yesterday confirmed that the scan on his injured left knee, which he picked up while playing for London Irish against Gloucester last Sunday, has revealed torn ligaments.

The initial prognosis suggests he could be sidelined for up to six months, though Davidson will undergo keyhole surgery this morning to determine the extent of the damage. An understandably dejected Davidson said: "I'm still holding out hope that it mightn't be that bad. I'm getting orthroscopy in the morning." If the damage is relatively slight, surgery could be performed immediately.

Meanwhile, the Munster Branch have set up a committee to investigate the brawl which brought a premature end to last weekend's Munster Development League tie between Waterpark and Ballinakill.

Connacht have finalised their busy schedule in advance of the province's European Conference quarter-final away to Agen. Assembling this Sunday, their senior and under-21 squads will travel in tandem to Limerick on Monday for a double-header of friendlies against a full Garryowen and a scratch Development XV at Dooradoyle. Warren Gatland and his Garryowen counterpart Phil Danaher will decide the exact nature of the senior game, most probably four quarters of 20 minutes.

Next Thursday, the full Connacht squad will travel to Scotland in advance of their friendly with Caledonia at Kirkcaldy on Friday. The following Tuesday, they travel to France in advance of their Conference quarter-final against Agen, which will now take place at 8.0 p.m. local time, 7.0 p.m. Irish time, on Saturday, November 8th.

Pontypridd yesterday demanded that Brive step up their security measures to protect the Welsh club's players from the crowd at next week's Heineken European Cup quarter-final play-off.

The Welsh champions are anxious there should be no repetition of the pitch invasion at the end of last month's pool match in Brive, which the hosts won 32-31.

The match will be monitored by the tournament's director, Roger Pickering, who will act as match commissioner.