The 22-year-old, Fiji-born Hong Kong international wing, who has almost singlehandedly revived Bristol’s promotion hopes during the past month, was joined on the scoresheet by the scrum-half Gareth Baber, who went over twice, and Al Charron, Mark Gabey and Paul Hull who each crossed once. Hull, the former England full-back, also kicked three conversions and a penalty to take his career total in Bristol first-team outings beyond 600 points.
Even though Worcester stumbled to an unexpected 18-16 defeat away to West Midland rivals Moseley to fall four points behind the leaders, Bristol can scarcely afford to ease up as they only have their noses in front on points difference and still have four games to play. Their main challengers are Rotherham, who were equally impressive yesterday as they ran in seven tries to sweep aside lowly Fylde 43-16. Two of their touchdowns came from the No 8 Ben Wade and the wing Dean Lax, their 15th and 13th league tries of the season respectively. The title race might appear to be a straight two-horse race between Bristol and Rotherham, but Worcester can still play an important role as they have to meet both pace-setters.Henley were celebrating last night after becoming Jewson National League One champions with a 39-8 eclipse of Liverpool St Helens. Their only rivals, Manchester, handed them the title when they surrendered 31-26 at home to Newbury.Swansea suffered their first home defeat of 1999 when London Scottish won an Anglo-Welsh friendly 27-12 despite the sending off of their Scotland full-back Derrick Lee for a high tackle on Alex Lawson.

Victory, which came courtesy of 24 points from the boot of their South African fly-half Jannie de Beer, was sweet revenge for the Exiles who had been trounced 76-5 by Swansea last November. In fairness, though, it should be noted that the Welsh club fielded just two members of their side which beat Ebbw Vale in a recent Swalec Cup quarter-final.Vale recovered from that setback with a 24-13 victory at Caerphilly in the Welsh Premier Division. Neath dented Pontypridd’s title ambitions with a 53-31 triumph at the Gnoll, but Newport secured their future in the top flight with a 33-0 thrashing of struggling Bridgend.The New South Wales coach Matt Williams called for the introduction of video referees after his side had a fair try disallowed en route to a 21-20 defeat by Auckland in the Super 12 in Sydney. Otago took the all- New Zealand battle against Waikato in Rotorua 27-16 while Wellington made it a hat-trick of Kiwi wins by 34-18 over Coastal Sharks in East London. But the Sharks restored Springbok pride with a 35-14 success over Queensland in Cape Town.New Zealand have the chance of further glory today in the world junior championship final against Wales in Llanelli.

But the home coach, John Bevan, warned: “To win the tournament would give Welsh rugby another timely boost.”. E

Sale 30
London Irish 27IF ONLY Sale’s player power had been as effective on the field as it has been off it the Manchester club might now be closing on the Allied Dunbar Premiership title, instead of languishing near the foot of the table. As they have done so often this season, Sale were obliged to rely on the power of Shane Howarth’s right boot to earn them victory.The Wales full-back dropped a 35-metre goal in injury time to conclude a dramatic final quarter which had produced three near misses for Sale, while Irish failed to reproduce the scoring power they revealed in the first half. They had only a penalty from Jarrod Cunningham to add to the 24 points they accumulated before the interval.The Sale players’ recent vote of no-confidence in their coach, John Mitchell, is a sorry, if predictable, postscript to their troubled campaign. Mitchell, ngland’s assistant coach, was apparently spending too much time with the national squad. The players revolted, so Mitchell resigned.Not all of Sale’s ills should rest at Mitchell’s door. At times their defence has offered the substance of a pricked balloon.

If they had tackled with the resolution Mitchell demanded, Sale would have won many more matches. Had their tackling held up yesterday Sale’s margin of victory would have been considerably wider.With a place in the uropean Cup for the top six, Irish were on target to participate in the cross-Channel stuff. But with two of their last three games against Bath and Saracens – who have played fewer matches than the xiles – both also with uropean ambitions, they are not there yet.Irish established a 10-point lead through a try by Nick Harvey, with a conversion and penalty from Cunningham. While Sale are prone to concede easy tries – as when Rob Gallacher strode over unopposed – they also score some beauties. Kevin llis claimed their first, Howarth got the second and chipped in with two penalties and two conversions, which put Sale ahead by three points. It stayed like that until Conor O’Shea skipped through llis’s limp tackle for a try at the posts. Cunningham converted to make it 20-24.Phil Greening kept Sale on track by crossing in the corner for Howarth to convert, only for Cunningham to tie the scores with his second penalty with 15 minutes remaining.

Then came Howarth.Sale: J Mallinder (Capt); M Moore, J Baxendell, C Yates (B-J Mather, 63), S Hanley; S Howarth, K llis (R Smith, h-t); D Bell(P Winstanley, 69), P Greening, D Theron, S Raiwalui, C Murphy (D Baldwin, 55), P Angelsea, A Sanderson, D O’Cuinneagain (A Morris 9).London Irish: C O’Shea (Capt); J Bishop, N Burrows, B Venter, J Cunningham; S Bachop, K Putt (K Campbell, h-t); M Worsley (N Hatley, 20), M Howe (R Kirke, h-t), R Hardwick (K Fullman, 66), R Strudwick, N Harvey, J Boer, R Gallacher, I Feaunati.Referee: C Rees (Twickenham).. Bath 24

Leicester 16
BATH HAD a miserable Christmas, during which they lost five matches in a row, but Easter has brought redemption. Yesterday they ended Leicester’s monotonous drive to the Allied Dunbar Premiership with a performance that was almost vintage Bath. The match itself was bizarre, with the referee, Ashley Rowden, awarding two penalty tries, a white card for the England flanker Neil Back, several lectures and 33 penalties.Bath, fresh from out-playing Saracens, won by a goal, a try and four penalties to a goal and three penalties.