England’s rugby protectionists will be in `told you so’ mood tonight when the Allied Dunbar Premiership returns to

England’s rugby protectionists will be in `told you so’ mood tonight when the Allied Dunbar Premiership returns to centre stage after five weeks of European competition. Saracens, Richmond and Newcastle are all in action and, as Chris Hewett reports, there will be few Anglo-Saxons in evidence. It would take Clive Woodward rather less than an hour to drive from his home near Maidenhead to Saracens’ palatial shared stadium in Watford for tonight’s London derby with Richmond, but England’s new coach may feel tempted to give the whole thing a miss and settle down to watch his old Bath colleagues embarrass themselves stupid in the latest installment of the BBC’s fly-in-the-dressing-room documentary. Dailly, who is in line for his fifth cap, reflects the cautious optimism that characterises Craig Brown’s meticulous style of management.”Belarus were a decent side with a lot of guys who play for top Russian clubs,” Dailly said “Latvia are above them so we expect a tough match. But Craig will do his usual thorough briefing on their tactics and players. And if someone had said at the start of the campaign that we’d qualify if we beat Latvia at home, we’d have settled for that.”The former Dundee United player, who will be 24 this month, may be a relative novice in senior international terms but he is no stranger to the global stage.

Breaking into his home-town team at 16, he was promptly called into Brown’s Under-21 squad and went on to gain 34 caps, a world record at that level.”I’m not sure if it’s such a good record to have,” Dailly admits. By then Honved had outscored London 16-5 to take a 37-26 interval lead.Martin Gottfried, so impressive recently but totally out of sync in the first half, raised London’s hopes with a quick four points. It was deep a hole for London to escape from after they trailed 58-38 with nine minutes to play and with their star American, James Hamilton, on the bench injured.Neville Austin, who missed last week’s defeat in Belgrade and the loss against Birmingham in the league on Saturday, returned to the starters and scored nine of London’s opening points as they led 15-12.Nearly seven minutes elapsed, painfully slowly for Towers fans, between Danny Lewis levelling the scores on 21-21 and Austin scoring the final basket of the half. London Towers 67 Honved Budapest 73

After their stunning victory over Group favourites Milan two weeks ago, Towers European Cup campaign turned full circle in bizarre fashion last night with an equally stunning defeat at Wembley against the bottom team in Group E.
The Hungarians, superbly marshalled by their captain, Zoltan Boros, and the American Ronnie McMahan, held on for their first win despite a 17- 5 London surge over the final five minutes. However, the 158 miles by which Smith trails Frostad is a big, though not impossible, challenge.For the first time since they left the Solent on 21 September, the women’s crew of EF Education, skippered by Christine Guillou, have moved off the bottom.The last boat is now Brunel Sunergy, as Hans Bouscholte plays a cautious game after losing two feet off his rudder in a collision with a whale.WHITBREAD ROUND THE WORLD RACE (First leg, 7,350 miles, Southampton to Cape Town) Latest positions: 1 Innovation Kvaerner (Nor) K Frostad 3,739 miles to finish; 2 Merit Cup (Monaco) G Dalton +48 miles; 3 EF Language (Swe) P Cayard +62; 4 Silk Cut (GB) L Smith +158; 5 Chessie Racing (US) M Fischer +174; 6 Toshiba (US) C Dickson +332; 7 America’s Challenge (US) R Field +355; 8 Swedish Match (Swe) G Krantz + 378; 9 EF Education (Swe) C Guillou +543; 10 Brunel Sunergy (Neth) H Bouscholte +545.. This is not good.”Although Dalton’s decision to switch direction early in the hope of finding a more favourable line to the Brazilian coast paid off when he regained second place from Paul Cayard’s EF Language, it has doubled the distance Dalton is behind the race leader, Knut Frostad, in Kvaerner.The Norwegian, whose 48-mile advantage will take a lot of hard work to whittle down, was beating upwind into 15 to 20 knots and big waves.

“The boat is taking a serious hammering,” Frostad reported, “but seems to handle it well.”Also working upwind is the British entry Silk Cut, with Lawrie Smith having established a comfort zone in fourth place, 16 miles from Mark Fischer on Chessie Racing in fifth. After 17 days at sea, the leaders in the Whitbread Round the World Race are approaching half-way on the first leg to Cape Town, but, as Stuart Alexander explains, the weather still shows no sign of lending the fleet a helping hand. A favourable wind remains a pipe dream for the 10-boat Whitbread fleet, with Grant Dalton in Merit Cup forecasting a long haul upwind while heading down the coast of South America.
“We have just received a long-range forecast which has made a couple of the guys question their desire to continue living,” said Dalton yesterday, as Merit Cup was reaching towards the island of Fernando Naronha. “It’s going to be hard on the wind after the island and on down to the next mark, the Ilha da Trindade off southern Brazil, and beyond.”The South Atlantic high is in the southern ocean, spinning south-east winds off the top of it, and it’s forecast to stay there. Wright, the Manchester City goalkeeper, has suffered a recurrence of a persistent thigh strain. Griffin, the St Johnstone full-back, has an ankle problem.The manager, Bryan Hamilton, brings in Chester defender Iain Jenkins and the Blackburn goalkeeper Alan Fettis..

I hear what is being said about Ryan, but we don’t fly out to Belgium until Thursday and we have a couple more training sessions before then.”The Republic of Ireland captain, Andy Townsend, has pulled out of the World Cup game against Romania on Saturday.The 33-year-old Middlesbrough midfielder is to have a scan after a knee injury in the First Division game against Sheffield United on Sunday.Tommy Wright and Danny Griffin are out of Northern Ireland’s squad for Saturday’s World Cup qualifier in Portugal. Gould needs to decide on a new captain because Gary Speed, who led the side for the first time in Turkey last month, is suspended. Mark Hughes, who would almost certainly have been next in line to lead his country, is also suspended.
If he is chosen, the Manchester United winger would become the second- youngest Welsh captain in history, after Mike England who was given the honour when he was 22.Gould said: “I don’t want to make any announcement just yet. The Rae Guest-trained four-year-old numbered the Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille among her career wins..

The Levy Board is “allowing racing’s life blood to drip away” according to a group which represents punters. Greg Wood hears how negligence could also allow rogue bookmakers to operate unchecked. When someone sends you a bill for pounds 9,567.82, most people would expect a little urgency on the part of whoever is doing the asking. A gentle reminder to start with, perhaps, followed swiftly by a series of letters carrying an escalating degree of threat. The Levy Board, however, does not seem to operate like that.
This, for those who glaze at the mention of racing politics, is the statutory body charged with collecting Levy payments from Britain’s bookmakers, who in turn take the money from punters as a portion of the nine per cent “tax” charged on off-course bets.