Clubs boycott Woodward's elite meeting

Clive Woodward wants the arrangements for England's élite player programme "set in concrete" from the start of next season. Worringly for the red rose manager, these particular plans appear to be wearing concrete boots, for there is no programme as far as the Premiership clubs are concerned. Woodward's attempt to hammer out agreement on training release dates and all aspects of international player welfare got nowhere fast yesterday when the Premiership directors of rugby decided to boycott a meeting at Twickenham.

The clubs failed to show because, they claimed, Woodward had attempted to hijack the meeting by inviting senior players and their agents, along with members of the Rugby Football Union management. "We were expecting a grown-up discussion about an area where there are major conflicts of interest, not a presentation by Clive," one insider said. "We keep hearing about the élite player programme and how it should now be kicking in, but there is no agreement as yet. That is why we've had a working party looking at the issue for the last two months."

Woodward, forced to take an under-strength squad to Argentina this summer because the vast majority of his Test players are out on their feet at the end of the longest domestic season on record, is beginning to lose patience with what he sees as obstructive measures by the clubs. He wants far greater access to his international squad from September as he prepares for next year's World Cup, but his plan for weekly gatherings has little support among the Premiership fraternity. He is also furious at a number of potential tourists who played with injuries towards the end of club campaign, and then pulled out of the Argentina trip after booking themselves in for minor surgery.

One year after the signing of a so-called peace deal between the RFU and Premier Rugby, the clubs' umbrella organisation, there is a serious prospect of a breakdown in relations over the handling of England's leading players. "This will not be sorted until the season is blocked off into domestic, European and international sections," a club source said last night. "And that is not in the gift of the RFU, or any other individual union."

Bristol, within 80 minutes of securing a Heineken Cup place for next season, may beef up their pack by recalling the former England lock Garath Archer and the out-sized youngster Andrew Sheridan for Saturday's win-or-bust Zurich Championship match with Northampton at the Memorial Ground. Both missed the play-off quarter-final victory at Leicester 12 days ago – an unexpected result that not only ended the Midlanders' four-and-a-half year undefeated home record against domestic opposition, but gave Bristol the sniff of a first ever Heineken qualification. If the West Countrymen prevail this weekend, they will beat Newcastle to the one remaining slot.

Julian White, their international tight head, definitely misses the game through suspension, and their senior loose head, Paul Johnstone, is injured. But with Archer, a World Cup lock in 1999, and Sheridan, who toured South Africa with England in the summer of 2000, back in the running, Bristol expect to field a side significantly stronger than the one that did the business at Welford Road. They should also attract their biggest gate of the season.