Wiese hit hard by huge fine

Rugby Union

The new exigencies of professional rugby hit Kobus Wiese, the Springbok lock, in the pocket yesterday when the South African Rugby Football Union fined him nine per cent of his annual Sarfu contract for foul play.

Wiese, already suspended for 30 days after being cited for the punch from behind that felled Derwyn Jones early in the South Africa-Wales game on 2 September, will now also have to pay the equivalent of pounds 9,000. The Springboks are on annual contracts of around pounds 100,000 a man.

The attack had some influence on Jones's decision to reject a lucrative offer to play for Transvaal, Wiese's province, and the fine does something to redress the balance between assailant and victim, Jones himself having a mandatory 21-day stand-down because Wiese's attack concussed him.

Leicester, England's champion club, yesterday filled their secretary's vacancy left by John Allen with their immediate past president and former team secretary, Tudor Thomas. Allen resigned the position last week because he was unwilling to serve in an honorary capacity once rugby union had opened itself up to professionalism. "Tigers have been a first-rate honest amateur club and it's my intention to guide them towards becoming a first- rate open club," Thomas said.

Coventry, the Cup winners in 1973 and 1974, the RFU knock-out competition's second and third seasons, were given an away tie at Rotherham, who have been promoted five times in eight seasons, in yesterday's Pilkington Cup second-round draw at Twickenham. This is the round at which Courage Championship National League Three and Four clubs enter the competition, with the 1975 and 1976 Cup runners-up, Rosslyn Park, drawing a derby match at home to Richmond, and London Welsh, the 1985 runners-up, away to Gloucester Old Boys.

PILKINGTON CUP Second-round draw: North: Otley v Stoke; Stockton v Leeds; Scunthorpe v Walsall; Macclesfield v Morley; Netherall v Winnington Park; Rotherham v Coventry; Bridlington v Aspatria; Harrogate v Fylde; Rugby v Broadstreet; Liverpool St Helens v Hull Ionians; Northern v Stourbridge; Birmingham and Solihull v Worcester. South: Basingstoke v Lewes; Tabard v Askeans; Redruth v North Walsham; Lydney v Harlow; Rosslyn Park v Richmond; Plymouth Albion v Camberley; Gloucester OB v London Welsh; Westcombe Park v Reading; Clifton v Metropolitan Police; Havant v Exeter; Henley v Hornets; Cheltenham v Weston-super-Mare. (Ties to be played 7 October).