The rest though is up in the air and will remain so until Woodward

The rest, though, is up in the air and will remain so until Woodward announces his starting line- up together with a wider 26-man squad in Leeds on Thursday.Jason Leonard will start at loose-head assuming his apparently badly bruised hand continues to settle down over the next 48 hours. Extraordinary as it may seem, however, the temporary skipper is one of the few cast-iron certainties to take the field this weekend.Richard Cockerill and Neil Back, both club-mates of Johnson’s, are already inked in, as is Jeremy Guscott in the centre. The Leicester lock has not been in this sort of form since well before the 1997 Lions tour of South Africa, which he led with considerable success despite an obvious lack of fitness, and the put-upon Dutch will not relish the thought of his knocking on their dressing-room door at the McAlpine Stadium. We’ve got our fingers crossed he’ll be ready sooner rather than later although we don’t want to rush him. The first couple of Test matches might be tough.”India bowled Sri Lanka out for 98 to win their third Sharjah Champions’ Trophy match by 81 runs in Dubai yesterday. India had been dismissed for 179 but their new-ball pair, Javagal Srinath and Ajit Agarkar, ripped through the early Sri Lankan batting and left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi finished the job.n India’s women are to tour England next summer to play three one-day internationals and one Test.. GREAT BRITAIN’S injury problems for the Test against New Zealand they must win to avoid the ignominy of a whitewash have worsened with the news that Iestyn Harris is unlikely to be fit, writes Dave Hadfield.

His appearance smacks of a Woodward plot to give Matt Perry, the incumbent, a psychological prod. The coach considers Perry a senior England player – indeed, he has been known to use the term “world class” in celebrating the Bath youngster’s many attributes – but events at Leicester on Saturday, where Perry and his wings had a rough time from a 16,000 audience, merely underlined a worrying lack of confidence.Martin Johnson will captain his country in Dallaglio’s absence. He will remain in the party for the second qualifying game with Italy on Sunday week if Dallaglio’s condition shows no sign of rapid improvement.Spencer Brown of Richmond is likewise bracketed with Underwood while Nick Beal, the Northampton full-back, also gets a late call-up. England may be engaged on World Cup business at Huddersfield in four days’ time but another 14 red roses will have to join Dallaglio on the casualty list if the visitors are to have the remotest chance of keeping the margin of defeat under 60 points.
Martin Corry, who has been playing the finest rugby of his career at Leicester and has even managed to drag a few superlatives from the lips of that master of understatement Dean Richards, was yesterday promoted to Woodward’s 32-man squad to reinforce the back row. The ferocity of last weekend’s Premiership programme has left the coach’s selection for the international opener with the Netherlands about as clear as mud; Lawrence Dallaglio, his captain, has withdrawn with knee trouble and a serious doubt surrounds Tony Underwood, who would have been a shoo-in on the left-wing had his groin not gone during Newcastle’s defeat at Harlequins on Saturday.

As it is, Woodward will still be enjoying a full night’s sleep. Each-way a quarter the odds, places, 1, 2, 3, 4 (Cheltenham, Saturday). IF ENGLAND were about to have their mental and physical faculties stretched to the limit by the Springboks, rather than their ankles bitten by a lightweight colony of Dutch midgets, Clive Woodward would probably be in panic mode right now. “I had intended to run Dorans Pride at Punchestown in December but he is in such good form I picked on Saturday’s Ayr race.” Whether anyone will dare to take him on, of course, is another matter entirely.ANTE-POST UPDATEMURPHY’S GOLD CUP H’CAP CHASE (2m 4f 110yds)Coral Wm Hill Ladbrokes Stanley ToteCyfor Malta (M Pipe/11st3lb) 15-8 2-1 9-4 2-1 9-4Mandys Mantino (J Gifford/10st8lb) 7-1 8-1 8-1 8-1 13-2Queen Of Spades (N Twiston-Davies/9st12lb) 7-1 8-1 8-1 8-1 13-2Papillon (T Walsh(Irl)/10st13lb) 9-1 10-1 8-1 10-1 13-2Simply Dashing (T Easterby/11st12lb) 9-1 10-1 8-1 9-1 8-1Senor El Betrutti (Mrs S Nock/12st) 9-1 9-1 8-1 9-1 11-1Challenger Du Luc (M Pipe/11st13lb) 12-1 12-1 10-1 12-1 11-1Addington Boy (N Richards/11st12lb) 16-1 14-1 16-1 16-1 16-1Dr Leunt (P Hobbs/10st) 16-1 16-1 16-1 16-1 11-1Or Royal (M Pipe/12st) 16-1 dbt 16-1 16-1 16-1Bertone (K Bailey/11st10lb) 20-1 16-1 14-1 16-1 16-1Potter’s Bay (D Nicholson/10st6lb) 20-1 16-1 16-1 14-1 14-1Philip’s Woody (N Henderson/10st) 25-1 25-1 20-1 25-1 20-1Danger Baby (P Bowen/10st1lb) 33-1 20-1 25-1 33-1 33-1Pimberley Place (N Twiston-Davies/10st3lb) 33-1 33-1 33-1 25-1 25-1Hoh Warrior (C Mann/10st3lb) 50-1 40-1 40-1 50-1 33-1Glamanglitz (P Dalton/9st2lb) 50-1 50-1 66-1 50-1 50-1Minimum weight: 10st. “This is a slight change of plan,” Michael Hourigan, his trainer, said yesterday. Papillon, who would be Ireland’s first winner since 1980, won the Ladbroke Trophy Handicap Chase at Cheltenham last season and was unlucky to finish a half-length second in the Irish National at Fairyhouse.”A horse fell in front of him at the fourth in the National and it knocked him back a bit,” Walsh said yesterday. “He had a run at Navan two weeks ago and he’s okay after it.” Walsh’s 19-year-old son, Ruby, one of Ireland’s most promising young riders, will be in Papillon’s saddle on Saturday.Ayr too will have a strong Irish challenger this weekend in Dorans Pride, one of his country’s principal hopes for the Gold Cup next year, who will run in the Sean Graham Chase.

Ted Walsh’s runner is a 13-2 chance with the Tote, but available at 10-1 with Hills and Stanley, always assuming that they have the courage of their odds compilers’ convictions and lay that price when the telephone lines and doors open. At a top-price of 9-4 with Ladbrokes and the Tote, only the reckless will step in to support him this early in the week, and it may well be that he will drift a little in the market on the day as the on-course bookies take him on.Next in lists are Queen Of Spades, whose trainer, Nigel Twiston-Davies, landed a gamble with Mister Morose in the Silver Trophy Handicap Hurdle at Chepstow on Saturday, and Mandy’s Mantino, who will try to take the prize to Josh Gifford’s Findon yard for the third time in the last six years.They can both be backed at 8-1, but the obvious springer in the market this morning is Papillon. Many observers struggled to recall when a horse had last won so easily over the big fir fences, and the performance was all the more surprising in view of the fact that Cyfor Malta is still a five-year- old.He has been raised 9lb for that win, which is hardly extreme, and the bookmakers are doing all they can to discourage punters from supporting him. Jumps racing never really goes away these days, but as of this weekend, it is back in spirit as well as in body. The Murphy’s Gold Cup, the race which anyone of a certain age (ie. 20 and over) still thinks of as the Mackeson, is the showpiece of the first weekend meeting of the season at Cheltenham. Backed up by two more days of valuable events, and packaged as a mini-Festival – the Irish craic – it is stage one of a whole series of big weekends which leads all the way to the Cheltenham Festival itself in March.
Seventeen horses were declared for the Murphy’s yesterday, with the field headed by Or Royal, the 1997 Arkle Trophy winner who is not a certain starter, and Senor El Betrutti, who, provided a few lucky punters with their betting bank for the whole season when hewon the race 12 months ago at 33-1.The horse which most backers will pin their hopes on this time around, though, is Or Royal’s stable-mate, Cyfor Malta, who won the John Hughes Chase over the National fences at Aintree by 13 lengths on his final start last season.