But that grief has turned to anger

But that grief has turned to anger."Tom Pendry, Labour's frontbench spokesman on sport, said restriction and discrimination ran through the Murdoch deal "like letters through a stick of rock. It will be hit in a big way and the game will be fundamentally changed." Taking up the point, Sproat said that with the World Cup coming up, he was sure Murdoch and Packer would turn their sights on rugby union.Strong on gritty emotion, the 90-minute debate was chaired by a former Featherstone Rovers player, Geoffrey Lofthouse, a deputy speaker and MP for Pontefract and Castleford.Hinchliffe complimented members of Featherstone on voting against a merger with Wakefield and Castleford as "Calder" - a river which to some in the close, ex-mining communities was "as remote as Ganges or the Volga"."On Sunday I attended what may well be the last match that my team, Wakefield Trinity, will ever play," Hinchliffe said "Grown men wept. "A sport has been purchased, lock, stock and barrel," he said.Warning others not to gloat, Hinchliffe said: "What is happening now in rugby league will be frankly a vicarage tea party to what is going to happen in rugby union ... He was particularly alarmed at the prospect of players not on Murdochised contracts being barred from the national team, highlighting the case of Wigan's Phil Clarke ,who has agreed to play Australian Rugby League - under the sway of Murdoch's rival tycoon, Kerry Packer.He confirmed that consideration was being given to requests by Jack Cunningham, Labour's trade and industry spokesman, to Sir Bryan Carsberg, the Director General of Fair Trading, and Michael Heseltine, President of the Board of Trade, for a monopolies investigation.The Super League has aroused anger in league country, much of it, as of M62 corridor MPs made plain, directed at the RFL's chief executive, Maurice Lindsay, and chairman Rodney Walker, for agreeing the £77m Murdoch deal with scant consultation.Ian McCartney, Labour MP for Makerfield and chairman of the all-party Rugby League group, questioned what confidence could be placed in Walker as chairman of the Sports Council when he was involved in a deal giving a media tycoon from outside the UK control over virtually every aspect of a whole sport. The Sports Minister, Ian Sproat, urged the all-party National Heritage Committee to conduct a "forensic inquiry" into the £77m Super League deal and invited David Hinchliffe, the Wakefield MP who initiated a Commons debate on the subject yesterday, to lead a delegation to talk to him. Sproat, replying to the debate in which northern MPs echoed the anger of their communities at the creation of Rupert Murdoch's Super League, said the media tycoon's activities involved "very serious principles indeed". Even that is small beer compared with the millions at John Hart's command, let alone Rupert Murdoch's.. MPs from all parties united in condemnation of Rupert Murdoch's proposed rugby league Super League yesterday.

But it is clear evidence of the way rugby is moving, even if DIOK is still seeking a £250,000 main sponsor. Cardiff, the Welsh champions-apparent, have asked for an invitation.This has nothing to do with the plans being hatched by Leicester, Bath, Swansea, Cardiff, Toulouse and Brive for a European Super League. But the DIOK club of Leiden, the hosts, hope that with exposure their expanded event, running this year from 19-27 August, will eventually be automatically attended annually by the cup winners of all the leading European countries.The Leiden tournament has been going on a four-team basis since 1988 but for 1995 it has doubled in size with the invitees including Wasps, Swansea, Boroughmuir, Blackrock College, Toulouse and Treviso, with one place to be filled. But we cannot continue to lose players."Hayman, whose union has pronounced amateurism dead and would like it decently buried when the International Board meets in Paris in August, said: "We believe it is most important that the ARFU is seen to be in a position where any initiatives in the game stay with us."The worst case is that a dozen Australians and up to 20 New Zealanders accept Murdoch's mega-dollars after the forthcoming World Cup in South Africa, and no international player you care to mention anywhere else would rule out at least considering an offer if it were £300,000 a year.The contrast with the pre-season European knock-out competition announced at the Dutch embassy in London yesterday could scarcely be more pronounced. "We're not trying to do a Murdoch- Packer arrangement where they're trying to take over the game.

"This proposal is one that works absolutely within the structure of rugby," he said. In New Zealand, Sky TV is unconnected with Murdoch.Thus Hart insists that Super Union would be complementary to New Zealand rugby's existing competitions. This amounts to little more than £20,000 a head but has already gained the approval of all 27 of New Zealand's provincial rugby union chairmen, and the board of the Australian Rugby Football Union will discuss the proposal on Saturday.Though the intention is to cash in on the lucrative Antipodean pay- to-view television market, both Hart and Bruce Hayman, the ARFU chief executive, said yesterday that their motivation was to keep rugby union out of the clutches of Murdoch's News Ltd, or those of Murdoch's business rival, Kerry Packer. No New Zealand province has won the Super 10 in its three years.If Hart had his way, two Australian and six composite New Zealand sides would play on a round-robin basis in a tournament called Super Union, each composite restricted to a squad of 30 players and a salary cap of about £5m. The Australasians' panic-stricken reaction to Rupert Murdoch's takeover of rugby league is leading them into ever more frantic consideration of how they may withstand the media tycoon's lucre. Once you start talking about salary caps, as the former Auckland and All Blacks coach, John Hart, is in relation to his plan for a southern- hemisphere competition which would kill off the Super 10 and exclude the South Africans, then even a laissez-faire interpretation of amateurism becomes meaningless.Hart may intend to combat the haemorrhage of All Blacks to league but he would not make anyone a fortune - besides which his event would lose credibility by the absence of South Africa. I thought I could wait for Wembley until I went myself."This Saturday, he goes there - and could spin through the old stadium like a small whirlwind.

Nobody who has watched his progress through the past 18 heady months would be the least bit surprised.. RUGBY IN TURMOIL: Two codes go to war against media tycoons' invasion that threatens a deluge of change There is no longer any doubt that rugby union, in some important parts of its world anyway, is about to go overtly professional. Last year on Cup final day, Paul did not even watch the match "I was playing cricket for a team in Wakefield. You certainly didn't want to run straight into them."Paul has undeniably put defences in a spin this season. Always exuberant and willing to try the unexpected, he is the sort of player who makes things happen. The match earlier this month against St Helens was an outstanding example. Following up a drop-out from Andrew Farrell, Paul picked up the ball's second bounce on the half-way line to score a try unlike any that even the oldest of old-timers at Central Park could recall.That bubbling enthusiasm comes through off the field, too.

Wigan have their share of wary old pros - and even one or two wary young pros - but Paul will chat away and spin a yarn with anyone. The little white kid from Te Atatu is like a breath of fresh air. "It goes back to when I was 13 or 14 - a little white kid playing against Samoans who were as big then as Inga is now You had to learn to spin. He and his younger brother, Robbie, now at Bradford Northern - like Sherlock Holmes with Mycroft, Henry always claims that Robbie is the more talented - both have a knack of spinning out of a tackle in a way that both bemuses and infuriates defences.In Henry's case, it sometimes seems that he accepts the attentions of a tackler only to use him as a fulcrum upon which to make his escape. Since then, he has really looked after me, like the true friend and the true Christian he is."The two can usually be seen together after the end of normal training, putting in some extra work on their handling skills, either out on the pitch at Central Park or on an improvised basketball court to the side of the Whitbread Stand.