Ruck and Maul: Melville sees golden future for sevens as athletes chase glory

Former England captain Nigel Melville, now CEO of USA Rugby, has been blogging about next week's probable incorporation of rugby sevens and golf into the Olympic programme. USA Rugby would become members of the US Olympic Committee "a few months after the vote", with extra funding and a range of other valuable support to follow. "The question that has yet to be answered," he wrote on nmdirect.blogsport.com, "is what impact Olympic sevens rugby will have on the rest of the game. Will sevens start to compete with XVs as a rugby brand? Will countries such as Fiji give up XVs and focus on gold medals? I believe that rugby's global landscape will change dramatically. Sevens will grow, players will make choices between the two rugby brands...better athletes will come into the game and chase rugby's Olympic dream."

Inopportune windows

Quick thinking by Patrick Lennon, London Irish's perspicacious press officer, prevented a Benny Hill sketch developing at Tuesday's UK launch of the Heineken Cup. As the media entered the Madejski Stadium's Premier Suite, window cleaners were moving around the ground, soaping and scraping ever closer to the gathered hacks. Lennon motioned to the squeegee men to take a break, heading off any pane-ful puns about cleaning up the game. Well, almost. Heineken's sponsorship since 1995 is one of the longest running in sport, and only the very pedantic would point out that the brewer pulled the plug for a season in 1998-99 when the competition was boycotted by the English clubs plus Cardiff and Swansea. So there have been 15 European Cups but only 14 Heineken Cups. Everyone makes mistakes: witness poor Martyn Williams whose hoiked kick in last season's daft semi-final shoot-out – not to be repeated now that the rules require only three kickers on each side – was an odd choice in a video compilation of otherwise rousing cup highlights.

First blood to Leinster

European Rugby Cup Ltd (based in Dublin) have appointed Dublin's finest, Alan Lewis and Alain Rolland, to referee Harlequins' first two Heineken Cup matches. Which may reassure the Dublin-based Leinster, Quins' furious opponents in the infamous 'Bloodgate' match. In Europe it will still be up to the referee and fourth official to make sure blood is blood and not joke-shop claret. Remember that Quins' capsule-biting wing Tom Williams was originally found guilty of "fabrication" partly on how ridiculous the stuff spouting from his mouth looked. Yet neither the fourth official nor Nigel Owens, the referee on that fateful April day, intervened to prevent Williams going off. If they couldn't tell the difference...

Skippers kept on the hop

"No one's ever made England captain forever, are they?" So said Martin Johnson, England manager and guest at a Sports Journalists' Association lunch on Thursday. Quite so, but his predecessors gave greater security of tenure. In October 2004 and October 2005, Andy Robinson named Jonny Wilkinson and Martin Corry as captain for the November series, while Brian Ashton appointed Phil Vickery on 2 January 2007 up to and including the World Cup in October. "I've always picked my captain game by game," Johnson said. "And Steve [Borthwick] prefers it that way."

hughgodwin@yahoo.co.uk