RUGBY LEAGUE: Curtain to fall at troubled Doncaster

RUGBY LEAGUE

BY DAVE HADFIELD

Doncaster are likely to go out of business today following the failure of the consortium bidding for control of the club to reach agreement with the Rugby League and the administrator who has been in charge of the South Yorkshire outfit.

The breakdown follows two unsuccessful attempts to merge the Tattersfield club with Sheffield Eagles, which culminated in eight Doncaster players being declared free agents.

Nigel Wright, the Great Britain Under-21 stand-off, has become the third British player to agree to join the new Australian club, the Western Reds, this summer. Wright will link up with the Perth-based club when his commitments at Wakefield Trinity are completed.

Although he became the most expensive teenager in the game when Wakefield sold him to Wigan for £140,000 in 1993, he is on loan to Trinity for the rest of this season, and they have an option to buy him back. St Helens have also shown interest in the player, who will join Wigan's Barrie-Jon Mather and his Wakefield team-mate, Daio Powell, at the Reds.

Martin Offiah is still unable to train with a thigh muscle strain and is rated doubtful for Wigan's Silk Cup Challenge Cup semi-final against Oldham on Saturday. The other players who missed the league victory at Salford on Sunday, Jason Robinson, Frano Botica, Shaun Edwards and Phil Clarke, are all expected to be fit.

Oldham recall the Kiwi prop Jason Temu. Temu, 22, was rested at Widnes on Sunday after 22 consecutive appearances but he will replace Chris Parr for a front-row confrontation with Wigan's Neil Cowie.

Rochdale Hornets have fined their Australian centre, David Anderson, £100 and given him a final warning. Anderson has been sent off once and sin-binned seven times this season.

A revised draw for the group matches in this October's Centenary World Cup will give each of the 12 games their own time slot, with at least one match every day from the opening fixture on 7 October and the final group match on 15 October.

Castleford's championship match against Warrington has been brought forward 48 hours to Friday 31 March to accommodate Sky's television coverage of the tie. It means that the match between Oldham and Castleford, originally rescheduled for Wednesday 29 March, will be played a day earlier. Warrington will also be involved in the Sky game on Friday 7 April against Leeds. Leeds' match with Oldham has been brought forward a day to Tuesday 4 April.