A north v south battle of the hemispheres is to take place for the first time this year but it may be moved to Twickenham from its scheduled venue at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.
Every major union agreed at this week's meeting of the International Rugby Board to back the event, which is being organised to raise money for the game's poorer national unions. The match will be held on November 30, the day the Rugby Football Union had hoped to stage an international between Australia and South Africa.
When the idea of a showdown between the two hemispheres was first proposed last year, it received little support with Australia and England threatening not to make their players available.
An agreement was reached with the Welsh Rugby Union last January to stage the match, but the IRB is not happy with arrangements and will send a delegation to Cardiff next Wednesday. If the deal is not finalised next week, the RFU will be asked to host the event at Twickenham.
The France coach Bernard Laporte is expected to take charge of the north and no union will provide more than five players to the teams, a concession that, it is hoped, will appease the clubs in the Zurich Premiership who have voiced their opposition to the fixture.
The New Zealand sports minister Trevor Mallard yesterday launched an attack on the IRB chairman Vernon Pugh and the Australian Rugby Union chief executive John O'Neill over the awarding of the 2003 World Cup to Australia.
Mallard said he would like to put a bottle of Heineken, one of the World Cup's sponsors, "in uncomfortable places for them". He later issued an apology.
The draw for the World Cup is expected to be made in the next three weeks with the ARU planning a lavish opening ceremony in Sydney at the end of next month.
The IRB approved England's proposed one-Test tour to Argentina this summer after the scheduled trip to the South Seas had to be cancelled because the RFU was unable to agree on dates with the host unions.
Two minor law changes will come into force by the start of next season. All starts and restarts in matches will be by means of a drop-kick, while referees will have the power to award free-kicks against teams who unduly delay forming a lineout.
The RFU yesterday suspended the Plymouth Albion three-quarter Russell Thompson for two years after finding him guilty of taking a banned substance, 19-norandrostenedione. The 25-year-old back was tested after last month's National League Two match against Rosslyn Park.
Thompson told the hearing, which was held in London, that he had ordered a muscle-building product through an advertisement in a rugby magazine but that he had not been supplied with what he had asked for and failed to check the ingredients in the tablets before taking them.
The RFU said it would investigate advertisements for medical products in rugby publications.
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