Corry Gives Top Brass Food for Thought

Martin Corry came out fighting at the weekend, leading by example as Leicester sent Sale, the defending champions, to defeat in the opening round of games of the Guinness Premiership season. As the first shot in his campaign to retain the captaincy of the England team in the face of competition from several quarters, it was a performance he urgently needed.

Too often last season we found ourselves listening to Corry's explanation of yet another defeat while staring at the blood seeping from a wound on the bridge of his nose. That wound lasted all season, and its refusal to heal seemed like a symbol of the condition in which his team found itself.

Occasionally, it has to be said, we commentators take a secret pleasure in observing someone's discomfiture at close quarters. Not so with Corry, whose willingness to stand up and be counted, on and off the pitch, attracted nothing other than admiration tinged with pity.

On the weekend's evidence, a summer away from rugby seems to have done him a power of good. Once again he was the figure whose honesty and guts persuaded Andy Robinson to give him the captaincy after injuries and retirement had stolen Jonny Wilkinson and Jason Robinson.

Whether there is more to Corry the captain than honesty and guts has long been the subject of debate. As last season's post-match interviews demonstrated, he is no great analyst of a game in which he has just taken part. But maybe the experience of several painful defeats, and some time to reflect, will have given him an extra dimension.

Under the eye of John Wells, England's new forwards coach, Corry will be hoping that he did enough in the victory against Sale to make his reconfirmation a formality. And yet nothing is certain in the world of Robinson's squad, particularly since the arrival of Rob Andrew as the RFU's director of elite rugby, with responsibilities for team affairs which are presumably known to himself and Robinson but are so far unspecified in public.

Wilkinson, Andrew's protégé at Newcastle and Andy Robinson's first choice as captain, seems to be on his way back. Given their intimate relationship with the former golden boy's career, the time may come when England's bosses will find it necessary to ignore the advice of Brian Moore, the former England hooker, to allow him a season-long rehabilitation in club rugby before exposing him once again to the pressures of life at international level.

Jason Robinson, too, has decided that his retirement from international rugby was premature and is indicating his willingness to return. If it seems less likely that the captaincy will come his way again, it may be that the head coach will welcome the game-breaking possibilities offered by his presence on the bench.

And then there is Pat Sanderson, who made an impressive entry into the side last autumn but was sidelined by injury when the Six Nations came around. In Corry's absence, Sanderson led England on their summer tour and by all accounts returned with his standing undiminished by a couple of heavy defeats.

From that field, Corry still seems the most likely choice. But what if this autumn's quartet of Twickenham internationals go badly? Defeats by the All Blacks and the Springboks would sound the alarm for next summer's defence of the World Cup. And at that point a familiar figure would loom large on the horizon.

Had it not been for a youthful indiscretion, Lawrence Dallaglio would probably have led England's campaign in 2003. His international ambitions remain undimmed, although his recovery from the removal of a metal plate from his ankle means that we are unlikely to see him in an England shirt this side of Christmas. But in a crisis, and with so much at stake, it might be that his vast experience and sheer ringcraft would force Robinson - or even Andrew - to lift the phone.

Cycling campaigners call for 'believable heroes' after summer of shame

Good and bad issued in equal measure from last weekend's climax to the Tour of Britain. The rows between the British and continental riders during Saturday's stage through Kent exposed the slimier internal workings of the sport, while Sunday's accident in The Mall suggested that the race organisation was not all it should have been. On the other hand a huge number of spectators had a great time.

Another sign of hope at the end of cycling's summer of shame came in the transparent wristband worn by Roger Hammond, Britain's leading male road racer, and other riders during the Tour. This is the symbol of the I Support Drug Free Sport campaign, launched by the UK magazines, Cycling Weekly and Cycle Sport.

"The sport is losing credibility," the campaign's leaders wrote in a letter to Europe's top professional road racing teams last week, "and with it will go support from sponsors and fans. All the fans ask is for believable heroes - riders who do not take the substances that are on the banned list.

"We do not want a witch hunt. We do not want to point the finger of accusation at individuals. We want authentic races, true results and believable heroes."

The campaigners are not innocents (they are fans of cycle racing - how could they be?) They recognise the danger that riders who dope will queue up to wear the wristband in an attempt to camouflage themselves.

But it seems a worthwhile attempt to encourage, as they say, "a shift in the culture" of a sport in which the good far outweighs the well-publicised bad.

Williams's world view that were pure Barnsley

Charlie Williams, the Yorkshire comedian who died last week, was a transitional figure in several senses. As a defender with Doncaster Rovers in the mid-50s, he was probably the first black footballer many crowds had seen.

Ten years later his regular appearances on ITV's The Comedians made the nation aware that a man could have a black skin and yet tell jokes with an accent and a world view that were pure Barnsley.

By all accounts Williams was an uncompromising centre-half. In clubs and theatres, however, he chose to defuse rather than confront the casual racism of the day. Eventually he wound up his television career because, he said, it ruined a comedian's act; once a gag had been told to a national audience, it was finished. Football, too, is a bit like that. How much more vivid the tricks of Stanley Matthews, George Best and Johan Cruyff seemed, unstaled by endless repetition on the small screen.

Lehman's secret weapons

This year's United States squad for the Ryder Cup includes four players whose names are unfamiliar even to those who scan the small print, and their own nation's commentators have been lining up to tell Tom Lehman, the captain, that he might as well not bother setting sail for Ireland. What seems to have been forgotten is that two years ago Europe won the Ryder Cup with five rookies.

This year, by contrast, Ian Woosnam's squad looks almost too predictable. If I were Lehman I would be quietly delighted to have the chances of my quartet of what's-his-names dismissed in so cavalier a fashion. And if I were Ian Woosnam, I would watch out.