Harlequins not ready to settle down

Andre Bester, Belfast Harlequins' talkative and ultra-positive South African coach, is something of a Kevin Keegan figure within the domain of the AIB League. Accordingly, having similarly guided a big city club to a prolific and runaway Division Two championship win, he abhors the notion that Harlequins might next season merely "consolidate".

Last season, following his move from Ballymena, Bester immediately vowed that Belfast Harlequins would make a swift return to the First Division they had just been relegated from. He duly delivered, despite having only two of his six contracted players for all bar a couple of Division Two games.

Though running the risk of being hoist by his own petard again, Bester is setting lofty targets once more for his newly promoted outfit.

"Our first team has to improve by 25 per cent if we want to be a really dominant force in the First Division, but we make no secret of our ambitions, and that is to reach the top four.

"If we don't make the play-offs we will have failed," he adds, a hint of gravity for once permeating his words, albeit fleetingly.

"There may be talk about avoiding relegation outside of the club, but that doesn't exist in our vocabulary. We are aiming much higher, I don't even worry about that (relegation) because I know we have the players."

As a further statement of intent yesterday, the club announced details of a "major" new sponsorship with Grafton Recruitment Group, believed to be worth at least £100,000 sterling over three years, as a result of which the club will change its name to Grafton Belfast Harlequins.

Likewise, the club's ground, Derramore Park (which Bester describes as the best in Irish club rugby after its £4.5 million facelift), has been renamed the Grafton Arena.

For tomorrow's divisional play-off final against their fellow promotion travellers UL Bohemians, Bester seems content enough to name the vast bulk of the starting side that served him so well this season. So he is without the four contracted players required by Ulster for their tilt against Munster next Friday.

As an aside, there will be even further South African input into Ulster rugby following the announcement that Robbie Kempson has signed for the province, where he will be reunited with former Western Province coach Alan Solomons

UL Bohs, for their part, have named their talismanic captain Justin O'Connell in their starting line-up. The brother of Munster and Ireland star Paul, O'Connell has just resumed training this week after an appendix operation which took place immediately before the Old Crescent league game, on March 16th.

The Limerick club have also yet to finalise their full back, pending further treatment and fitness tests for the injured duo of Rob Desmond and Carl Gilligan.

By contrast, the First Division finalists Cork Constitution and Shannon won't finalise their line-ups until today. Just like old times really. Both, though, have injury concerns and have been obliged to wait on clearance from Munster on some of their more celebrated players.

Anthony Foley is the one Munster player definitely ruled out of tomorrow's final and, indeed, is already touch and go to make the Heineken Cup final against Leicester in Cardiff on May 25th.

Foley, ever present in Munster's 44 European Cup games thus far, apart from being rested for one dead rubber, has damaged his shoulder joint and has been advised to avoid all contact work for at least two to three weeks. At best, he might be passed fit only on the week of the final.

Of the other wounded heroes from Beziers last weekend, Peter Stringer is still troubled by the thigh problem which jeopardised his chances of playing last Saturday and thus looks more doubtful than Mick Galwey, John Hayes or Alan Quinlan, who are all likely to have some part in tomorrow's decider.

Jim Williams has definitely been ruled out of the Constitution side, though he has been responding reasonably well to treatment on his torn calf and looks to have a better chance of making the European final than Foley at this stage.

Ronan O'Gara is highly doubtful for tomorrow's final after sustaining 13 stitches on his left knee in Beziers though, like John Kelly, Anthony Horgan, Frankie Sheahan, Mick O'Driscoll and the rest of their contracted players, he is included in a 24-man squad which will travel to Dublin today.

Remi Tremoulet has resigned as coach of French First Division outfit Castres. The 37-year-old former Castres hooker blamed player power and failing to obtain assurances from the board over the way forward for next season for deciding to step down.

UL BOHEMIANS: R Desmond or C Gilligan; K Matthews, M McPhail, C Finn, A Coetzee; I Costello, L O'Connell; M Harty, G Ryan, C Neilan, J O'Connell (capt), B Dineen, C Fitzgerald, A Hartigan, A O'Gorman. Replacements (from): C Gilligan or C Garvey), M Roche, J Danagher, K Flanagan, G Flanagan, S Browne, J O'Neill, P Fitzgerald.

BELFAST HARLEQUINS: N Malone; R Collins, A Lowe, R Botha, J Lowe; A Derwin, S Clancy; C Keown, R Weir, D Scott (capt), C Beukes, A Emerson, M Higginson, C McCarey, N Best. Replacements: M Finlay, A Park, D Fitzpatrick, N Hanna, A Dougan, D Irwin.