Contepomi's striking record

Planet Rugby:That Leinster again signed Felipe Contepomi for another few years, while he works towards a qualification in medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons, came as little surprise.

A look at his last year's points record gives some indication of why coach Michael Cheika and the rest of the Leinster management rate him so highly.

Having kicked seven from seven against the Ospreys at Donnybrook (five penalties, two conversions) on Saturday night with a heavily bandaged knee, Contepomi is merely following on from last year's haul of points. The Argentinian scored 276 points in the 2005-'06 season, grabbing nine tries, 35 conversions and 55 penalties.

Contepomi, however, is currently ninth in the Magners Celtic League kicking percentages for this season. Top of the heap is Glasgow's Colin Gregor with a 91.67 per cent record with Munster's Jeremy Manning third on a 80 per cent rating, Ronan O'Gara fourth on 79.17 per cent and the illustrious David Humphries in eighth place with a 76.36 strike rate. Contepomi, with 34 hits from 45 attempts has a 75.56 per cent rating.

No luck for Halstead

Not such good luck for another of the provincial team's imported players, Trevor Halstead, this weekend. The South African centre was initially selected for some relatively relaxed bench duty in Munster's Magners Celtic League meeting with Dragons at Rodney Parade. But following a bout of illness to Barry Murphy and Denis Leamy, Halstead was called from the bench to play at inside centre with Lifeimi Mafi moving to 13.

Halstead, however, was forced out of the match with a leg injury, which may now keep him out of Munster's historic Heineken European Cup match next weekend in Geneva against French side Bourgoin. So much for lucky breaks.

Ground for fallout

London Irish could be forgiven for feeling a little frustrated following the postponement of their Guinness Premiership home game against Saracens on Sunday.

The Exiles share the Madejski Stadium with Reading FC, whose FA Cup match this weekend was also called off because of flooding. The football match has been rearranged for Tuesday and manager Steve Coppell had expressed concerns that the rugby game would leave the pitch in a poor state ahead of the match against Burnley.

The row over mud may bring London Irish's future in Reading into doubt. The talk is that the former Manchester United player Coppell would like to sever the ground share agreement. "Obviously I'd be happier if there wasn't a rugby club sharing the ground," Coppell was quoted as saying.

"We don't see them and there's no cross-interference at all. You don't need a tremendous surface to play rugby but you do need a fairly flat pitch, hopefully with a bit of grass on it, to play football."

Hmm, a few things to ironed out there then.

Trio sent home

Australian coach John Connolly appears to be taking player fitness as seriously as the Irish squad did some years ago. Connolly has had to defend his decision to send home four players from a Wallabies training camp earlier this week for failing fitness tests. Waratahs trio Lote Tuqiri, Morgan Turinui and Tatafu Polota-Nau as well as Brumbies winger Mark Gerrard were sent home on the first morning of the camp after failing a running test

The stumbling block for the four appears to have been an endurance sprint session involving 20 repetitions over 50 metres and another 20 over 100 metres.

Turinui managed the distance but outside the allotted time, while the others failed to complete the task.

During Warren Gatland's reign as head Irish coach a few big Irish names went missing from a panel, apparently over fitness issues. For Victor Costello, Rob Henderson and Eddie Halvey, however, it was more of a card marking exercise as they all came back in to the Irish set-up.

So Connolly is far from the first coach to take the physical fitness of his players seriously, although, if the rumours that Tuqiri, with his exquisite timing in a World Cup year, is thinking about going back to league, there is possibly another dimension to all of this.

Quote of the week

"Professional integrity and loyalty are things that are important to me. I'm here for a reason. I'm here because I had an intention and a promise and I'm a man of my word,"

- Australian World Cup winner and Ulster secondrow Justin Harrison explains why he stayed in Belfast after the recent break-up of his marriage.