The Six Nations Championship, still unable to finalise a new television deal, suffered a fresh setback yesterday when its first and only title sponsor Lloyds TSB ended a five-year deal with the tournament.
The bank's head of group sponsorship Jon Phelps said: "We do not intend to move away from our interest in rugby and are exploring other opportunities in international and grass roots rugby which we feel might better meet our business objectives at this time."
The Six Nations committee will consider its television options at a meeting tomorrow. It rejected a £70m offer from the BBC in May but after Sky said in March that it no longer wanted to broadcast the tournament, so ending an £87.5m deal with Twickenham that caused a rift with the Celtic nations five years ago, the Corporation remains the only serious bidder.
The International Rugby Board, meanwhile, wants to see a reduction in the number of replacements during international matches from a maximum of seven to four.
"The IRB is well aware that a substantial proportion of the game's stakeholders take the view that there are too many substitutions/replacements in matches at international level," the game's governing body said in a statement.
Member unions will be asked to respond to the proposal by the end of next month with a view to a full discussion at an IRB council meeting in November.
The Tri-Nations, which at least half the globe considers bigger than the Six Nations, begins in Christchurch this weekend and Australia's selectors have left out the former rugby league international wing Wendell Sailor for the Bledisloe Cup meeting with New Zealand.
Sailor was omitted from the 22-man squad after Ben Tune returned from injury along with the No8 Toutai Kefu and the first-choice hooker Jeremy Paul. Australia's coach Eddie Jones has the luxury of choosing his best available side for the first time since taking over from Rod Macqueen last year.
The domestic transfer market did some more brisk business yesterday. Bath have confirmed the signing of France's 28-year-old international tight-head prop Alessio Galasso from Montferrand and Bordeaux have captured Scotland's prop Gordon McIlwham.
Leeds, who denied their coach Jon Callard was trying to recruit his former Bath players Iain Balshaw, Mike Tindall and Dan Lyle, have recruited the Auckland wing George Harder. Sale's ex- England A centre Martin Shaw has moved to Bristol.
