England’s World Cup-winning coach has been in contact with SRU officials to grant Scotland’s director of rugby a temporary release from his duties. He made a try-scoring England debut against Italy in Rome during last season’s Six Nations.He said: “Philippe Saint-Andr?nd the coaches have really got the place buzzing, and the lads feel that we can deliver something special over the next few years with this squad.”The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) has confirmed that Ian McGeechan has been approached by Sir Clive Woodward to come out of coaching retirement and join the Lions in New Zealand. I feel that by agreeing to end my playing days at Sale, that I will be able to repay their faith in me.”Robinson, who has started at full-back, wing and centre for England during a 33-cap Test career, scoring 19 tries, is with the club on a pre-season trip to France.Jones was discovered by the club’s academy system, and made his first-team debut in 2002. Forshaw has been told that knee ligament damage could keep him out for the next four weeks.The Castleford winger-centre Paul Mellor is to return to Australia on a one-year contract with Cronulla Sharks.. You just think about your own competition.”It’s my first Games and there’s been a lot of hype because of how well I’ve done, but I’m just approaching it as if it’s a normal competition. As soon as you get into the stadium and you’re in the warm-up room, you’ll realise it’s just the same people around that you’ve been fighting the rest of the year.”Fallon might not have been fighting anyone in Athens had his coach, Fitzroy Davies, not lured him out of premature retirement.

He’s of previous good character – in fact, he’s a prison officer at Wakefield – but I suppose he could be in the dog house over this.”We had two players sin-binned for dissent during the game, so really this makes three,” Nicholas added.Warrington’s Mike Forshaw, who is to take up a new role as the League’s lifestyle mentor for young players at the end of this season, could see the rest of his playing career blighted by injury. “If she hadn’t given up work and got Lottery support, she wouldn’t be where she is now, ranked in the top three in the world for the heptathlon.”As for the relatively small proportion of qualifying marks, Jones points out that this is as a result of drastically improved standards set by the International Olympic Committee for the forthcoming Games.Were current standards applied to the last Olympics, 18 who competed in Sydney would not be eligible to appear in Athens. The Welsh Rugby Union has told Clive Griffiths, who is emplyed as a defence coach for the Welsh national team, that it will not release him from the remaining year of his contract on its staff to take up the vacant coaching position at Widnes. To have two Olympic medals is fantastic, but to get a third as gold would be the icing on the cake.”No Briton has ever won Olympic judo gold, although Diane Bell, the women’s team manager in Athens, and Sharon Rendle both won at the Games – when women’s judo was introduced as a “demonstration” sport in Seoul in 1988. “I did get a medal,” Bell said, “but it wasn’t a proper Olympic one.”Still, at least one member of the squad knows what it is like to break new ground. Back in 1993, Sophie Cox made it into the Guinness Book Of Records as a participant in the first rugby league match contested by women at Wembley Stadium.The European 57kg silver medallist played at full-back for Rochdale Schools against Sheffield Schools in a curtain-raiser to the Challenge Cup Final “We won 12-6,” she proudly recalled.. She would have hung up her judogi four years ago, had the Cuban Sibelis Veranes not beaten her in the 70kg middleweight final.

With a bronze medal from Barcelona in 1992, the Dartford woman wants to complete a full set of medals in what will be her final fling on the global stage.”That’s why I’m here: to win a gold medal,” she said “And if I wasn’t capable of winning it I wouldn’t be here. But my coach kept coming round my house, dropping my sister off from judo, and at the end of 2000 I got back into it again.”At 21, Fallon is the “baby” of the eight-strong British judo team At 31, Kate Howey is the veteran. After a promising career in the junior ranks, he drifted out of the sport for two years “I’d just lost interest,” he reflected. “I wanted to do other things, to hang around with my friends and stuff.”I didn’t plan on coming back to compete again I was planning to go into graphic design.