Baa-Baas dream team facing reality check

The Barbarians are renowned for playing rugby from the land of make-believe – some of the stuff they produced against the All Blacks in THAT game 19 years ago defied all logic – but to select a team on the same basis is just a little worrying.

Jonah Lomu, the big bloke from the wrong side of the tracks down New Zealand way, was yesterday trumpeted as the major draw for this summer's three-match trek around the British mainland, but like a number of other squad members, his participation is strictly conditional.

Lomu is currently playing Super 12 rugby for the Wellington Hurricanes, who are pressing hard for a top four finish in the southern hemisphere's showcase provincial tournament. If Graham Mourie's side make it to the business end of the competition – and, with three matches left, they have a decent shout – the most recognisable rugby player on the planet may find himself otherwise engaged when the Baa-Baas play England, Wales and Scotland between 26 May and 1 June.

Christian Cullen, his fellow All Black luminary and Hurricanes colleague, is in the same boat, as is Christian Califano, the Saracens-bound French prop currently playing for the Auckland Blues. There are further issues with the 13 potential Barbarians announced yesterday.

Matt Perry, the Bath full-back, has such serious problems with a disc in his back that he is unlikely to be fit by the start of next season, let alone next month, while Rassie Erasmus, the Springbok flanker, has injury problems that have restricted him to a handful of appearances in the last year.

There is some hope that Thomas Castaignède, the Frenchman who snapped an Achilles tendon while warming up for an international against Australia in November 2000 and has not laced up a pair of boots since, will make the Baa-Baas tour. Saracens, who have paid a small fortune for the privilege of watching Castaignède sit in the stand at Vicarage Road, have cautiously identified the Premiership game with Bristol on 12 May as a possible comeback date – they certainly need him to be ready by then, given the broken wrist suffered by Tim Horan during Friday night's defeat at Sale. Yet, even if he is fit to play for the Barbarians, he will hardly be in the best of nick.

Some rather more solid developments emerged from Sale yesterday. Four first-choice forwards – the lock forwards Iain Fullerton and Scott Lines, and the loose forwards Stu Pinkerton and Alex Sanderson – agreed two-year extensions to their existing contracts, as did the team manager and co-coach Steve Diamond.

Sanderson, very much in Clive Woodward's thoughts for a place in England's 2003 World Cup squad, has been a target for virtually every other Premiership club since he first made the senior side as a teenager in 1998, and his decision to stay put will give the northerners timely encouragement as they contemplate their Parker Pen Shield semi-final with Gloucester on Sunday.

* Edinburgh have secured the futures of their talented young prop forwards Allan Jacobsen, Craig Smith and Gavin Whittingham. Team regulars Jacobsen and Smith, both 24, who have won 17 Scotland A caps between them, have signed new contracts which will see them remain with the Welsh-Scottish League outfit until at least 2004. Whittingham, 24, has also established himself this season and has signed a one-year extension.