Six Nations: Newcastle Snub Andrew Rest Request for Wilkinson

Newcastle have politely told their ex-director of rugby Rob Andrew where he can stick his request for England's leading players to miss this weekend's Guinness Premiership games. The Falcons say they cannot afford to be without Jonny Wilkinson, Mathew Tait and Toby Flood for their important fixture at Bristol and all three are set to be involved on Sunday.

Andrew has had "a couple of interesting conversations" with his former assistant John Fletcher but Newcastle say they are in no position to rest Wilkinson and his colleagues six days before England face Ireland in Dublin. "We're 10th in the league and the best place for our players is out on the field, not sitting in the stand," said a club insider.

The former Lions and England fly-half reiterated his belief yesterday, however, that England will be at a severe disadvantage at Croke Park if their best players are slugging it out this weekend while their Irish counterparts put their feet up.

As well as the Bristol-Newcastle game, there are two other matches - Wasps v Sale and Saracens v Gloucester - scheduled for Sunday. All four latter clubs supplied players to last weekend's England starting XV and will do so again when Brian Ashton names his starting line-up, way ahead of schedule, this afternoon.

This premature declaration is a clear attempt to heap further pressure on the clubs to put the national interest first and Andrew has acknowledged as much. "Brian will be announcing the team to ensure the Premiership clubs know the players we would appreciate being rested or benched this weekend," said Andrew.

Clubs such as Leicester and Wasps, who have bigger squads, may well agree to rest the likes of Martin Corry and Phil Vickery or pick them on the bench. Others like Sale, however, have injury problems and will find it hard to omit their captain Jason Robinson and flanker Magnus Lund.

Ireland's fly-half Ronan O'Gara, meanwhile, will miss training this week with an ankle injury sustained in the 20-17 defeat to France. "We're confident it's just a knock and nothing sinister," said the Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan. Brian O'Driscoll and Peter Stringer are expected to be fit.