The Gloucester wing Marcel Garvey, hailed in some quarters as the new Gerald Davies, yesterday signed a new two-year contract with the Zurich Premiership leaders.

Garvey, who made his first league start against Harlequins this month, scored a hat-trick of tries in the west country derby against Bristol last Saturday and at the age of 19 is regarded as the most promising emerging player in the Premiership.

"Marcel is a special kid with a special talent," said Gloucester's director of rugby Nigel Melville. "He is working hard on his game and has both pace and power but we are bringing him on slowly. He has a lot to learn and we are managing his development process."

The new boy who made the most impact on the Premiership last season was the Gloucester back James Simpson-Daniel, a peripheral figure this campaign with the emergence of Garvey and the arrival of Thinus Delport consigning him to the bench.

Gloucester are at Bath on Saturday for their second derby in a week. The home side hope to have their internationals Mike Catt, Mike Tindall and Gareth Cooper back from injury for a match which has already sold out.

· Ireland will complete their World Cup qualifying programme on Saturday when they take on Georgia in Dublin. Eddie O'Sullivan, their coach, has named an unchanged team after last week's victory in Russia but Keith Wood has a neck injury and his chances of playing are rated no better than 50-50.

The World Cup final will be played at Stadium Australia in Sydney in November next year. The Australian Rugby Union yesterday denied suggestions that the capacity would be significantly below 80,000 because of roofing work being undertaken on two of the stands.

· The ARU is offering its leading players around £3,000 each to take part in the charity match between the two hemispheres at Twickenham on November 30 but it said it will not force anyone to take part in a fixture that has attracted widespread criticism since it was arranged by the International Rugby Board earlier this year.

· The England manager Clive Woodward has declined an invitation to take charge of the northern hemisphere side on the grounds that it will not contain any English players because the Premiership clubs have boycotted the event and Tony Dempsey, the chairman of the International Rugby Players Association, has called on the IRB to cancel the game.