Rugby Union: Richmond's early risers

THE LATEST and most hastily arranged tournament in English rugby's ever-expanding portfolio, the Cheltenham & Gloucester League Cup, received a cautious welcome from First and Second Division clubs alike when it kicked off this weekend. Yesterday morning's game between the Athletic Ground's co-tenants proved little more than an appetiser before the main event a couple of miles away at Twickenham.

The event is being run by the English Rugby Partnership with the help of pounds 1m over three years from its sponsors, and given the miserable weather, the unusual kick-off time of 11.30am and that the tournament only came into being 10 days ago, the turnout could have been a lot worse.

With 20 teams split into four pools of five and a Twickenham final on 4 April, it is supposed to involve all the clubs from the top two divisions of the Allied Dunbar Premiership. But Wasps, Harlequins, Saracens, Bath and Newcastle have declined to take part and already there have been warnings from the organisers in an attempt to head off rumblings of discontent among the bigger clubs who are left in.

The idea is to play the matches on international weekends, when there would not normally be any club games, and whatever its merits it is a little ironic that clubs such as Saracens, who have bemoaned their lack of Saturday fixtures this season, are among the first to snub this new initiative. Following the example set by Leicester and Coventry in Friday night's games, both Richmond and London Scottish fielded significantly depleted teams, but the superior speed and strength of First Division Richmond proved too much for opponents riding high in Division Two.

Richmond ran in five tries including a first-half hat-trick for the wing Dominic Chapman, whose pace set the tone as early as the second minute when he ran clear from halfway after a Scottish attack had broken down.

He punished the Exiles in similar fashion 10 minutes later, before the Scots rallied with a try by their Canadian international Courtney Smith. Iain McAusland converted that, but the Western Samoan Earl Va'a made a beautiful break and long pass to give Chapman his third try and Richmond a 15-7 lead at the interval.

Scottish at least managed to keep Richmond at bay until Spencer Brown side-stepped his way through on the left touchline after an hour. Simon Mason kicked the conversion and added a penalty before Mel Deane rounded things off with another try three minutes from time.

"We wanted to win the game and take it seriously, otherwise there's no point in putting a few of the senior players in the team," Richmond's Director of Coaching, John Kingston, said. "Obviously these games give us some meaning in this four-week period, but it shouldn't be allowed to happen that we don't have league or European matches at this point."

Richmond: J Gregory (S Mason, 58); D Chapman, T Whitford (M Deane, 20), M Hutton (capt), S Brown; E Va'a, A Pichot; J Foster, A Cuthbert, J Davies, P Carr, C Gillies, R Martin, S Quinnell (A Beattie, 53), C Palmer.

London Scottish: D Millard (R Davies, 13); G Thompson, E Raynor, J Bonney, C Smith; I McAusland, C Morley (M Schultz, 74); P Johnstone (J Baird, 56), J McLellan (D McGavin, 73), J Kelly, M Skrypec, A McNab, T Davies (S Owen, 61), T Jankovich, C Tarbuck (capt).