THIS weekend's Home International squash championships in Cardiff have been badly hit by late withdrawals by teams. England have pulled both of their teams out of the event while the women's competition has received a further blow with the loss of the Scots due to a bout of flu which has affected most of their leading players.

In the men's event the Welsh will field two sides to ensure that the number of matches for each of the remaining nations is unchanged from previous years but, for the Irish women, there will now only be one match against the hosts over the next two days.