The Churchill Cup, taking place this year in late May in England, is likely to be an interesting little tournament.

The fixtures, announced this week, see Ireland A opening their campaign against Canada on 19 May at Sandy Park in Exeter, which is also the venue for their second game against the New Zealand Maori four days later.

The final day of the competition, on 2 June, sees all six sides . . .England Saxons, Scotland A, USA, Canada, the Maori and Ireland A . . .play-off for positions one to six in the competition at Twickenham. This year's competition promises to be extra interesting because of the World Cup in October.

All those 'A' players out there could push themselves into contention for an active role in the greatest show of all with a decent effort in the Churchill Cup, which will surely add a bit of extra spice to proceedings. Tickets for the Irish games in Exeter, by the way, can be purchased from www. exeterchiefs. co. uk in the coming weeks.

NEW ZEALAND'S EDEN FAR FROM PARADISE

The 2011 World Cup final at Eden Park might not be the quite the plush occasion that we'd been expecting.

Over the past week, the New Zealand government have given the go ahead for a $190million revamp of the Auckland venue, a figure some $200 million short of what the World Cup organisers had wanted.

As a result, 10,000 seats will have to be installed for the tournament with IRB rules dictating that a World Cup "nal venue must have a capacity of at least 60,000.

The Eden Park trust board have indicated that they may seek private funding to upgrade the ground properly in time for the tournament but the New Zealand problems do at least prove one thing. We're not the only country in the world who have stadium problems.

IN HOT WATER? HEY, IT'S ALL FOR CHARITY

How about this for a charity auction?

The Newcastle Falcons were offering two lucky fans the opportunity to watch the first half of Friday's match against Wasps from a hot tub looking over the pitch. Not only that, the club were willing to fill the hot tub with two strapping young men from their squad, who would then accompany the auction winners to watch the second half from the stands. The winning bid for this strange prize was �92, but spare a thought for the two players designated to go into the hot tub. It must have been some excruciating wait to see whether the two auction winners were two young females, a pair of grannies or a couple of men wanting to get a little closer to the action.

(NOT SO) GREAT MOMENTS IN IRISH RUGBY NUMBER 22 . . .

Irish touch judge hands England victory In the Home Nations Championships of 1937, Ireland beat both Wales and Scotland but a controversial incident against England at Twickenham cost them the Triple Crown and Championship.

With Ireland leading England thanks to two tries from Fred Moran . . . an Irish sprint champion . . . the home side were deep in opposition territory with five minutes left on the clock.

HV Sever, England's left-winger, motored down the line but he appeared to be bundled into touch by two covering Irish defenders just as he touched the ball down for a try.

The Welsh referee, JW Faull, was unable to decide whether Sever had scored the try so he consulted with his Irish touch judge, Stan Polden. To the cheers of the home crowd, Polden insisted that Sever had dotted the ball down before going into touch and the try was awarded.

Victory, the Triple Crown and the Championship were England's.

THE LAW LIBRARY

The Italians may have found a completely legal way of halting the maul. During their game against England a couple of Saturdays back, the home side took a ball from the line-out and the rest of the pack gathered around Danny Grewcock when he came back down to earth.

The Italians, though, proceeded to step away from the forming English maul and simply retreated quietly backwards. As a rather confused English juggernaught inched their way forward, Italian hooker, Carlo Festuccia, came around the side of the maul and tackled Phil Vickery, the English-ball carrier in the formation.

Vickery was then penalised for not releasing the ball on the ground and Italy were awarded a penalty. And there was absolutely nothing illegal in all of that. Festuccia wasn't guilty of being offside because there was no offside line at the time of his tackle and Italy were perfectly entitled not to engage in the maul, providing of course they didn't actually leave the line-out too early. It's not the kind of thing you'd try "ve metres from your own line but it could be a useful tool further out.

RUGBY BY NUMBERS . . .

600 Average price paid on internet auction site ebay, in sterling, for a stand ticket for yesterday's Ireland versus England game at Croke Park.

RUGBY POSER

Who is the only player in yesterday's Irish starting XV who played under Brian Ashton when he was in charge of the national side?

MOUTHING OFF. . .

The biggest thing I learnt was that coaching at club and international level are two entirely different things.

I soon realised you needed a totally different approach. I feel in"nitely better prepared now. I'm older and more experienced, although that's only my opinion.

Brian Ashton tells of the lessons learnt from his period as Irish coach back in 1997 and 1998.