Robinson will lead a 30-strong party to Australia for next month’s Tests in Sydney and Melbourne, no fewer than a dozen of them drawn from outside the ranks of the EPS named last September. Andy Robinson exploded two popular theories in the course of a half-hour address at Twickenham yesterday, denying categorically that he is rugby union’s version of John Prescott – “My position is now stronger, not weaker, than before,” the England coach insisted in the face of suggestions that he will take fewer decisions for the same money as a result of recent reshuffling activity – while proving once and for all that failure to make the cut for the Elite Player Squad is not the end of the world. Smith was due to leave at the end of this season to take over at Newcastle Knights, but has brought forward his departure after seeing his side lose seven of their first nine games in the NRL.The Queensland coach Mal Meninga has named seven players new to State of Origin rugby in his side to face New South Wales in the first match of the series in Sydney next Wednesday.. Pat Richards’ last-minute effort was ruled out because he lost the ball in Colum Halpenny’s tackle, before recovering to touch it down.The Wigan coach, Brian Noble, complained about the decision, which left his side six points adrift of Trinity, rather than a mere two, but Cummings says that Presley was right to rule that Richards was responsible for losing the ball.Widnes have denied holding crisis talks with their coach, Steve McCormack, after the defeat by Hull KR on Sunday, which left them fifth in National League 1.The club’s new chairman, Stephen Vaughan, has already sacked its highest-paid player, David Peachey, and McCormack has been promised money to bring some new players in.Widnes, who have lost to their promotion rivals, Leigh, five times so far this season, have a Challenge Cup tie against the Catalan Dragons on Sunday.The former Hull and Bradford coach, Brian Smith, has resigned after 10 years at Parramatta. “We are waiting for the swelling to go down before we can see the extent of the damage. It could be just a strain, which would be six to eight weeks.”The League’s director of referees, Stuart Cummings, has said that the video referee, Steve Presley, was right to disallow what would have been Wigan’s match-winning try at Wakefield on Saturday.

A club spokesman confirmed that he has ligament damage and that, if there is a rupture, he could be out for the season.
“But at the moment we are very, very far from saying that,” he said. He is to have a scan this week and a bad diagnosis could mean that his Headingley career is over. Leeds hope that their England full-back, Richard Mathers, has not played his last match for them after badly injuring his knee in Friday’s defeat by Hull. Mathers is out of contract at the end of this season and is a target for the new Australian club, the Gold Coast Titans.

It should also help progress ongoing talks with the FIA about sporting, technical and governance issues.The agreement between the major forces will signal that long-term stability can make the sport an attractive arena for global sponsorship, with tobacco advertising to be banned from September.. He added: “We can build on this result and look forward to jointly grow Formula One and make it an even bigger sporting spectacle than ever before.”The MoU gives the teams a much bigger share of the sport’s significant revenues, and provides the basis for a new Concorde Agreement between FOA, the FIA and the teams through to 2012. Later it was confirmed that BMW, Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Renault and Toyota had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Formula One’s commercial structure as developed between the F1 rights owner CVC Capital Partners, Ecclestone’s FOA and the GPMA.Professor Burkhard Goschel, the GPMA chairman, said the agreement “constitutes a comprehensive solution for the future of the sport”. First there was the breakout of a modicum of humour in the press conference on Friday, then the outcome of the first meeting of the world governing body FIA’s new Sporting Working Group in which a democratic majority vote vetoed some of the president Max Mosley’s more contentious proposals on freezing engine development.
On Sunday came the news that the hitherto warring factions – Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Administration and the Grand Prix Manufacturers’ Association – had buried the hatchet, finally removing the threat of a breakaway world championship.