If anybody has been watching Match of the Day over the past couple of weeks you would have seen Portsmouth goalkeeper David James wearing what looked like an Irish rugby jersey as he batted away shot after shot from the Man United frontline. It wasn't a trick of the eye, because Pompey's kit is now made by Canterbury and the New Zealand company appear to have copied the design for the football goalkeeper's shirt directly from their range of rugby gear. One thing puzzles us, however. As the two kits are so similar, you'd imagine they'd cost somewhere in and around the same price bracket, but that's doesn't seem to be the case. An Ireland rugby jersey will set you back 77 on the IRFU website, while the Portsmouth kit only costs Stg�45 from the club shop. Our local bank tell us that "gure converts back into roughly 66, an 11 saving on the Irish kit. It appears we're being ripped off for some reason, folks.

WORRIES FOR IRELAND

As if Ireland hadn't enough injury problems within their 30-man squad, it would now appear even those on potential back-up duty are picking up injuries. The likelihood was that David Humphreys would not have played any part in Ireland's World Cup campaign anyway, but the Ulster out-half is struggling to be "t for Ulster's opening Magners League game against the Ospreys on 21 September after suffering ankle ligament damage in training.

It's yet another reason to pray for Ronan O'Gara's wellbeing over the coming six weeks and, while you're at it, you may as well offer up a word or two for Brian O'Driscoll and Shane Horgan too, who both go for scans this week to check on the progress of their recovery.

THE LAW LIBRARY

Andrew Henderson's first try against Ireland a couple of weeks back got us thinking. The Scottish centre didn't ground the ball over the line, or indeed on it, but he did appear to touch the padding of the goal posts after he made his way past Brian O'Driscoll. Which, of course, means the try was legal but we did wonder what part of the padding needed to be touched for a try to be scored. Could a player, for example, be awarded a try for touching the ball against the padding an inch of two above the ground? Law 22.4 (b) of the laws of the game tells us: "f. the goal posts and padding surrounding them are part of the goal-line, which is part of in-goal. If an attacking player is "rst to ground the ball against a goal post or padding, a try is scored." The key phrase here would appear to be "ground the ball", meaning that the ball has to touch both the ground and the goal post padding at the same time for a try to be awarded. Which is exactly what Henderson seemed to do.

RUGBY NUMBERS . . . 1,900 The distance in kilometres between the two furthest World Cup venues, Edinburgh and Marseilles.

RUGBY POSER Who is the top points scorer in the history of the Rugby World Cup?

Ans2

MOUTHING OFF. . .

"We're too onedimensional and there's no interplay between the forwards and backs.

Either the forwards take it on or the backs take it on, there's no real mix" Simon Shaw gives a refreshingly honest assessment of England's efforts against France next week. We're not sure, though, if Brian Ashton appreciated his words