But if there is one English team capable of adapting All Black-style to a referee in this case Tony Rowlands from Wales

But if there is one English team capable of adapting, All Black-style, to a referee (in this case Tony Rowlands from Wales), it is the Tigers, who since their success last season have no hang-ups about Bath.Much of the attention may be turned on Leicester but we should not forget Harlequins, who, by beating Bristol at The Stoop, would overtake the Welford Road losers.The main match in Wales brings Swansea to Cardiff, with Derwyn Jones back three weeks after being concussed by Kobus Wiese's punch from behind in the South Africa-Wales Test.. But as Phil de Glanville, the Bath captain, expects more than two defeats to be at least one too many, this early in the season would be a most unpropitious time.The Bath players have enjoyed this week's tale of the tape: the video of Leicester malfeasance sent to leading referees by the RFU's refereeing officer, Steve Griffiths. If some of the Tigers take a look at all those spectators and then adjust their wage claims upwards, they can hardly be blamed.As it happens, both parties are doing their best to see beyond this game, if only so that defeat can also be downplayed. Defiant as they may increasingly be of their national unions, 83 per cent of the First Division clubs in the home countries say they cannot afford to pay players in a poll conducted by Rugby World magazine.A cynic might add that today's mega-fixture gives its participants the chance to parade their wares with a view to sharing in the mega-bucks Newcastle United are bringing to Newcastle RFC though, having said that, the player-manager Rob Andrew for now plays on for Wasps, at home to Saracens today.With professionalism arriving more inexorably than officialdom cares to acknowledge, there are changed imperatives for players and clubs. Here is bums-on-seats evidence of why England's First Division clubs believe they have a product to sell as well as believing they would make a better job of it than the Rugby Football Union. Not that even Leicester's 14,000-strong membership and progressive attitude mean clubs in general would confess to being ready for professionalism.

It has taken only two rounds of First Division fixtures to reduce the 100 per cent sides to last season's first and second and Harlequins, and Welford Road, will be crammed with a capacity crowd approaching 17,000 with its new stand in use for the first time. The Courage Clubs' Championship has more than seven months to run but already the significance to the campaign's eventual outcome of this afternoon's skirmish between Leicester and Bath cannot be exaggerated, writes Steve Bale. Basketball DUNCAN HOOPER Manchester Giants' supporters are running out of players to watch. Their coach, Mike Hanks, has reluctantly axed their American playmaker Ron Rutland as a result of the dispute which has cost him 6ft 9in Trevor Gordon.With the 6ft 11in Danny Craven out with a long-term injury, the Giants' general manager, Rick Taylor, said: "We've got to get some height in." Rutland's replacement against Birmingham Bullets tomorrow is the 6ft 7in American John Tresvant, who lost his place at Leicester City Riders during the summer.Taylor said that Rutland had been shocked when told he had to go: "Anybody would have been, but he was caught up in the domino effect of the row with Trevor and Danny's injury."Thames Valley Tigers are likely to lead the chase for Gordon, who has not played for Giants since pre-season..

Guy Fordham, with five caps, looks the most likely to make the breakthrough.ENGLAND SQUAD (for Six Nations Champion Trophy, Berlin): S Hazlitt (capt), J Barrow, G Fordham (Hounslow), S Mason, J Wyatt, M Pearn (Reading), J Wallis (Teddington), J Halls, J Lee, N Thompson (Old Loughtonians), D Hall (Guildford), C Mayer, Kalbir Takher, B Sharpe (Cannock), R Garcia (Polo Barcelona), C Giles (Havant).. Hockey BILL COLWILL reports from BerlinWith six of his bronze medal- winning European Cup side unavailable, and fitness doubts over Kalbir Takher and Chris Mayer, the England manager, David Whittle, is trying out two uncapped players in the Six Nations Champion Trophy here.Mark Pearn, 18, who led the attack for Gloucester City, of the Second Division, last season, becomes the youngest player to win an England cap. Guildford's Danny Hall, 20, also makes his debut this evening as England face the Netherlands.The replacements will be trying to stake a claim for a place in Great Britain's squad for the Olympic qualifier in Barcelona in January. And that's presupposing they haven't already been made."Which is a new, and fundamentally different, expression of the intense loyalty that made Bath the best.. "People like Sir John, and others who will do something similar even if not on such a grand scale, will have offers on the table to players from Bath and elsewhere. Not withstanding the Rugby Football Union's one-year payment moratorium, Sir John Hall's move into rugby and with it Rob Andrew's managerial appointment at Newcastle are enticing but also uncomfortable products of the new dispensation."We at Bath need to have contracts in place well before the end of the season because it will be too late if we leave it to the end of the moratorium," De Glanville said.

Richard was opposed to it being a paid appointment but John kept right out of it. We approached him, not the other way round; John would have been happy just to retire."One thing about internal politicking - of which Bath have had their share down the years of their success - is that it fits De Glanville perfectly for negotiating his and his players' way through the new professionalism. He has not gone as far as his Bath team-mate Mike Catt or Tony Underwood in giving up the day job but even De Glanville, still an England reserve more than first choice, has reflected changed circumstances by reducing his commitment as communications manager with Cow & Gate at Trowbridge to three days a week.The next step is to get on with the business - which is precisely the right word - of becoming a club as well as international professional. There were confused lines of communication, and when I say confused I mean non- existent in certain areas."So we sat down the day after the cup final and asked ourselves what we wanted from our management structure and who we wanted to head it up The unanimous answer was John Hall. Bath players respond to a strong figurehead who calls the shots, but that wasn't in place.