Neutral venues on cards as crisis bites harder

The Six Nations' telephone conference scheduled for today has been put back to Thursday, ostensibly because of the bank holiday weekend here. However, the additional 48 hours suggests the championship organisers will look more closely at the alternatives for rearranging the three postponed matches between Ireland and Wales, England and Scotland.

Presuming the worsening foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain prevents those games taking place in Cardiff, Dublin and Edinburgh on the rescheduled dates already announced (April 29th, May 5th and May 12th), then the only viable alternatives are to play them on neutral venues before the end of this season or pencil them in for next season.

The Irish squad held a closed session yesterday in Greystones, though Keith Wood (foot injury) and Brian O'Driscoll (shoulder injury) didn't take part, while Gary Longwell was unable to attend because of a family illness. O'Driscoll is awaiting the results of a scan on his shoulder.

Kieron Dawson was back in harness after his recent recovery from a career-threatening neck injury while the Munster assistant coach Niall O'Donovan was enlisted for the day along with seven additional forwards to facilitate some "live" set-piece practice.

The players brought in were James Blaney, Martin Cahill, Peter Bracken, Marcus Horan, Mick O'Driscoll, John Langford and Donnacha O'Callaghan. The squad will complete their two-day get-together in Greystones today.

Ulster have announced an initial squad of 22 players for next season including newly-contracted players in Dungannon's former UCD lock Aidan Kearney, and Paddy Wallace, the former Campbell College and Trinity out half.

Of this season's squad, hooker Allen Clarke has retired and moved into coaching, scrumhalf Stephen Bell has moved to Bedford in England, and full back Grant Henderson has returned to South Africa.

The remaining squad places will be taken up by Tyrone Howe, who is currently negotiating an Irish contract, a hooker, two back row forwards, a centre and a full back.

ULSTER SQUAD 2001-2002 (to be completed): J Bell, S Best, M Blair, C Boyd, J Campbell, R Constable, S Coulter, J Cunningham, B Free, J Fitzpatrick, D Humphreys, P Johns, A Kearney, G Longwell, N Malone, T McWhirter, R Nelson, S Stewart, J Topping, A Ward, P Wallace, R Weir.