It is an extremely sad day for Five Nations rugby and a

“It is an extremely sad day for Five Nations rugby and a matter of sincere and profound regret.”McLeod also implied that England’s ostracisation would not stop at expulsion from the money-spinning tournament. But an unpleasant legal battle is looking inevitable.The consequence of England’s go-it-alone deal was spelled out by Scotland. “We are pretty confident England will be asked to make alternative arrangements for season 1997-98,” Fred McLeod, the vice-president of the Scottish Rugby Union, said. England are prepared to resort to legal action if they are expelled from next season’s Five Nations’ Championship.

Last night the other three Home Unions rounded on the Rugby Football Union after Twickenham announced an pounds 87.5m deal over five years, running from 1997-98 to 2001-2002, for exclusive live broadcast rights of all international, representative and club matches with Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB. Terrestrial companies will be invited to bid for the rights to broadcast matches in full, no earlier than two hours after they have gone out live on BSkyB. As yet there are no takers: ITV could have scheduling problems around the 6-6.30pm mark, but BBC2 may move in for it, although they are likely to have to pay substantially more than their present pounds 27m for live broadcasts if they want to show the games long after the results will be known.
The RFU currently receives 37 per cent of the present deal with the BBC, worth pounds 27m, with a further pounds 7m or so coming from Sky, but that contract expires at the end of next season.An RFU official said that, having taken legal advice, it feels it has a good case and it is expected to seek further counsel, although it is reluctant to drag the matter into the courts. McAllister and Collins are the equal of any midfielders in Europe and Andy Goram is world class.”Our supporters will dearly hope we will now win at Wembley. I am not saying we will, but England will find it very difficult to beat us. The opening games have given us more optimism but England showed in the first half against Switzerland that they are a fine side.”. “After 20 minutes I thought we would win, we had so much pressure, but the game drifted away from us,” he said.

“Every game is a cup final for us now,” he added, showing that cliched speech is not restricted to British footballers.Hiddink was unhappy at the Swedish referee’s failure to spot John Collins’ alleged handball.”It was a big mistake,” he said “The Scots admitted it was a handball. The referee was in a bad position.” Craig Brown, his counterpart, was naturally more buoyant. “It was a battling performance in which Stuart McCall was the key He sat in front of the back four and broke up their attacks. It meant Dennis Bergkamp, whose movement had been troubling the Scottish defence, had to be moved to the wing, where his threat was less.