I'm not sure how my body will hold up, but in my head I'm as fresh as a 20-year-old."Having started as a stand-off, where he won 22 of his 52 caps, the 14st 7lb Mesnel now specialises at centre, and his French- record partnership with Philippe Sella will increase on Saturday from 20 to 21 appearances.Sporting what must still be one of the most impressive pairs of thighs in world rugby, he has a freakish capacity to remain standing in the tackle. Certainly, at 33 years and nine months, Mesnel can hardly be regarded as a hope for the future, but for those who have followed him week in and week out for Racing, he is still one of the outstanding performers in the French championship."What does old mean? I certainly don't feel old and I'm sure the example of Linford Christie is enough to prove that a player of my age still has something to offer. "But first of all we have to think about how we can resist the Irish. They are never easy to play against - they might wear green, but there is no risk of mistaking them for the grass!" Mesnel's recall to the French team for their final game of the Five Nations' Championship after a two-year absence is considered by some to be a sign of desperation by the selectors, who have also called up two other members of the old guard: Marc Ceillon (35) and Louis Armary (31). "Everyone's talking about how we are going to bounce back after the defeat against Scotland," he said. As if innoculating himself for this weekend's game in Dublin, he was nursing a half-pint of Guinness (£2.50 a half being the current Paris price) and listening with half an ear to the young lady singing "Molly Malone'', his thoughts already turning to Lansdowne Road.
Last Sunday evening, Franck Mesnel sat quietly in a corner of the James Joyce, yet another of the Irish bars mushrooming across Paris. While his Racing Club team-mates analysed - at infinite length as rugby players all over the world are wont to do - their afternoon's win, Mesnel was in a reflective mood. Fifa said yesterday it received a communication from Mexican officials on Tuesday - the deadline for confirmation of bids - informing it of "their decision to discontinue their bid".. If the result is still deadlocked after extra time, a penalty shoot-out follows.A Fifa spokesman, Andreas Herren, said a proposal was before the 1998 organising committeee to adopt the format from the second-phase round."The proposal was submitted by Fifa's working group, Task 2000, which was given the job of finding ways and means to make soccer more attractive to the public," Herren said.Mexico, financially and politically in turmoil, has told Fifa that it no longer wants to host the 2002 World Cup finals, leaving Japan and South Korea the only runners in an all-Asian contest. A team finishing as low as 10th in the Premiership could qualify for the Intertoto Cup, which starts on 25 June. The drawback is that the competition lasts all summer, thus denying a club's players any break. The sudden-death format used to resolve drawn matches in Japan's J-League could be introduced in the 1998 World Cup finals in France, a Fifa official said yesterday.In the J-League, the team who score the first goal in extra time win the game. The Football Association has been allocated three places for the Intertoto Cup, a summer competition for 64 teams.
The prize for reaching the semi-finals is inclusion in the Uefa Cup. English clubs have been given an extra chance to secure a place in next season's Uefa Cup. The referees and those who control them seem to forget that the game is for the players; if it is too difficult to referee effectively (as it clearly is) then it must be simplified.Yours faithfully,R A BRADFORDMiddle Rasen, Lincs. No reasonable man could disagree with that proposition.Players do play to the limit of the laws and beyond, but they are only partly to blame. When some of the most able and best coached teams in England can come off the field spitting with anger and frustration, whether rightly or wrongly, at England's supposedly best referees, there is a serious problem that no one seems to have addressed effectively.Important matches are being decided by very subjective and sometimes blatantly incorrect judgements; most mistakes can be forgiven but not those relating to scores. Fortunately, there have been some good matches in spite of the laws and poor refereeing. Rob Andrew's view, which is a commonly held and sensible one, is that only the best referees should be appointed for these big games in the same way that only the best players play in them.