If St Helens stumble at Gateshead, then Bradford – at home to bottom club Hull – could go top of Super League for the first time this season.The Northern Ford Premiership leaders, Hull Kingston Rovers, in administration for the past two years, have agreed a pounds 500,000 sale of their Craven Park ground that will allow them to lease it for games.. TWO AMERICANS, Tom Lehman and Hal Sutton, and South Africa’s David Frost shot eight-under-par scores of 63 in sweltering conditions to share the first-round lead in the St Jude Classic here on Thursday. The defending champion, Nick Price of Zimbabwe, was the only non-American in the chasing group, along with Clarence Rose, Jimmy Green and Phil Blackmar, who opened with 64, while the 1997 champion, Greg Norman of Australia, and Paul Azinger were on 66.
Sergio Garcia, the 19-year-old Spanish prodigy, was forced to withdraw and underwent minor surgery for an abscess above his left eye. He is expected to recover in time to play in the Irish Open next month.For Lehman, his 63 proved to be a disappointment after he was nine-under after 14 holes and aiming to shoot a 59 “I thought, `I’m hitting the ball pretty well. With four holes to play, I can make three birdies’,” said Lehman, who has not won on the US PGA Tour since 1996.Instead, he made par at the next three holes and finished with his only bogey of the round after pulling his drive and leaving his second shot on a downhill lie behind the green.”I hate to bogey the last hole,” Lehman said.

“You always think it would be nice to finish with a par or birdie rather than bogey. But I think today was a step in the right direction.”Sutton, who has rejuvenated his career in the last two years, displayed terrific iron play in a bogey-free round.Frost, frustrated by recent lacklustre play, said he was not sure he would even enter until a few days before the tournament. However, he proceeded to give a master-class in the short game, holing a magnificent 25ft wedge shot on the 10th hole and several birdie putts of 10ft or more, including a 25-footer on the 17th.. JARMO SANDELIN yesterday took another stride towards securing his Ryder Cup place as he moved into the lead in the second round of the German Open here. The 32-year-old Swede, famous as much for his colourful dress sense as his golf, shot a superb 64 to jump to the top of leaderboard at 11 under par and claim pole position for the pounds 120,000 first prize.
Victory at the Sporting Club this weekend would guarantee his place in the European side to defend the trophy in the United States in September, although even a top-10 finish should be enough to ensure he is a definite member of Mark James’ side.”That would be really nice because I would then be able to relax,” said Sandelin, currently fifth in the points standings and who had eight birdies in his round with matching halves of 32 on the Nick Faldo-designed course. “The Ryder Cup is a great team event and a great chance to play against the best players in the world.

Golf is an individual game and we play so few team events.”There will be nerves of course, but I get nervous in the last round of ordinary tournaments and hopefully my game is good enough now to handle the pressure. I had a very bad time when I played in America a couple of years ago, so it will be nice to go back as one of the 12 best golfers in Europe.”Sandelin had a 69 in the first round and began yesterday seven shots behind England’s Gary Evans, who had broken the course record with a 10-under-par 62. However, with Evans failing to reproduce anything like that kind of form, the Swede soon closed the gap and moved into the outright lead with four consecutive birdies in the middle of his back nine.. THREE WINNERS of 1,000 Guineas are likely to confront each other in next Wednesday’s Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot. The Henry Cecil-trained Newmarket 1,000 Guineas winner Wince is joined by John Gosden’s Valentine Waltz, who took the French equivalent, the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, and Hula Angel, successful in the Irish version for Barry Hills.
Wannabe Grand and Golden Silca, runners-up at Newmarket and the Curragh respectively, are also in the line-up for the Group One contest along with Godolphin’s pair Fairy Queen and Pescara.Alan Jarvis, who had provided Gary Stevens with his most recent winner before yesterday, Duke Of Aston at Goodwood nine days ago, again supplied the American with a successful ride as Keep Tapping took the opening maiden race at Sandown yesterday.Always in the first two for the five-furlong sprint, the Mac’s Imp bay held a definite lead before half-way and held off the challenge of the 11-4 joint-favourite Kareeb, whose chances were not helped by running green, by two and a half lengths. Firepower was a further half-length away in third.Three of Stevens’ four victories since he decided to settle in Britain have been at Esher.

Asked if Sandown was his favourite racecourse, he returned: “So far.”. ACCORDING TO David Campese, who played some half-decent rugby in his time and still knows more than most about the mysteries of the Wallaby three-quarter line, Australia will have no fewer than 65 different back division moves at their disposal when they open their seasonal account against Ireland at Ballymore today. That could well prove at least 64 too many for an uncertain touring side fielding Test debutants at wing and centre. If Nathan Spooner, the Aussies’ own international rookie, manages to put Tim Horan, Ben Tune and the rest in a square inch of space, it is likely to be a case of Goodnight Sheila. The fact that the Irish are dabbling with some back-line adventure of their own suggests that, if things go wrong here, they will go wrong in a mighty big way. With all due respect to the mercurial David Humphreys, the muscular Kevin Maggs and the hugely promising Brian O’Driscoll, they do not quite stack up against a Wallaby unit who can legitimately think of themselves as the classiest act in the game, as well as the quickest.

“If Australia are bold, Ireland are facing a 40-point drubbing,” trumpeted Campo this week.
Nevertheless, the Irish hierarchy have pinned their emerald shirts on a new and radical approach. In the considered opinion of Warren Gatland, the national coach, the age-old “stick it in the air and see what happens” formula is not so much out of date as positively Jurassic. “You might keep the score down by keeping it tight and you might even sneak the very occasional victory if the opposition play poorly, but if you want to achieve anything meaningful in today’s rugby you have to keep the ball in hand and make it work for you,” said the former All Black hooker this week. “Our basics – our scrum and line-out – are pretty sound now, so it is about time we went in search of some continuity.”Not even Campese would argue with that doctrine. In fact, the most eloquent, not to say persistent, advocate of the running game probably feels like giving Gatland a kiss, on the basis that if the Irish are prepared to give it a rip out wide, the dark era of one-dimensional, up-the-jumper rugby is truly a thing of the past. But as the Irish readily concede, tactical revolutions do not happen overnight; witness their debilitating defeat by a second-string New South Wales outfit last weekend Running the ball is one thing.