WHAT a jolly jape it should be for England in Liechtenstein tomorrow, but should we really be allowing those nasty Turks to come to Sunderland's Stadium of Light next week?

Following the furore over the regime in Zimbabwe, which wrecked the England cricketers' chances of winning the World Cup, there is a deathly silence about the Turks visiting this country.

Yet Turkey is being lambasted for impeding the progress of the war in Iraq by refusing to allow access to American troops.

Still, this is the untouchable sport of football, opium of the masses, we are talking about, not some minority pursuit which can easily be used as a political pawn without causing an uprising.

David Beckham is probably preparing even now to stir up disenchantment with Turkey among his men and use it to England's advantage.

I can hear him articulating his pre-match exhortation: "Let us give these dastardly Turks the thrashing of their lives and send them back whence they came, wishing they had granted the run of their land to the coalition's noble warriors."

It should, of course, be a grand occasion for Sunderland fans starved of quality football this season. And hopefully their team's inability to test West Ham goalkeeper David James last Saturday will not leave him rusty for his competitive England debut.

He shouldn't have too much to do against Liechtenstein either, although Beckham has warned fans expecting a bucketful of goals that the match is a potential banana skin.

This sounds like a pathetic example of getting your excuses in first. But we've had enough of those. After the performances against Macedonia and Australia anything less than a four-goal margin against this assortment of plumbers, wine-makers and coach drivers should not be tolerated.

WHAT'S happening to the weather? At this rate the cricket season will be starting on dustbowls up and down the land, and they've started watering at Aintree.

Just think of all those times the Grand National field has been reduced to a handful of finishers because the rest have sunk up to their fetlocks in the Aintree clarts.

The Durham cricketers could be forgiven for thinking it's just a continuation of the conspiracy which dogged them last season.

They went to South Africa on a pre-season tour, but as things turned out they might as well have gone to South Shields. This time they booked three days at Old Trafford's indoor school this week, only to find they could have stopped at home and practised outdoors.

In fact, they could be playing now without recourse to the multitude of sweaters traditionally required at the Riverside in mid-April. But this time they are being made to wait until April 23 for a start at Taunton, which will no doubt be the signal for a downpour of biblical proportions.

THE going is nearly always "Yielding" in Ireland, which means to say it's like a peat bog. But assuming they've also had it drier than usual, Lansdowne Road should provide a perfect surface for top-quality rugby on Sunday.

It will be Dublin's first Grand Slam showdown because the only other time Ireland have staged one was in Belfast in 1948, when they beat Wales.

In fact, the away team has never won the final match in the Five or Six Nations when the Grand Slam has been at stake for both sides, and England's defeat at Murrayfield in 1990 still rankles with some us.

I chiefly remember Scotland's negativity that day, when collapsing scrums seemed to be part of their strategy, and given a boggy surface some Irish teams of the past would have relished sticking the ball up their jumpers and denying England the chance to play.

But not this lot. They can't hope to overpower England, or to out-kick them with Jonny Wilkinson on top form, so they have to create some space for the brilliant Brian O'Driscoll.

It promises to be an occasion well worthy of a glass or two of Guinness. In fact, Dublin will surely run dry if the Irish win, but it is time for England to cast off their reputation for choking on the big occasions away from home. Other than a dash of O'Driscoll magic, only passion can beat them, and they have enough old hands in their ranks to overcome that.

ONE of many disappointments in cricket's World Cup was that it failed to shed any light on who is the world's best all-rounder.

Neither Jacques Kallis nor Shaun Pollock hit form, Chris Cairns was unfit to bowl, and statistics suggest the top all-rounder in the tournament was Canada's John Davison.

Andrew Flintoff might have rivalled him given better support, but England should now have no doubt that specialists win one-day internationals, not the bits and pieces all-rounders they were packing the side with two years ago. That's why there should be no more talk of giving the captaincy to Adam Hollioake. It should go to Michael Vaughan.

Published: 28/03/2003