Australia's insistence on turning their European tour into a Grand Slam has put even greater pressure on the Rugby Football Union to sort out their differences with the English clubs. The threatened boycott by the players of next Wednesday's training session at Bisham Abbey is not helping the coach, Jack Rowell, to prepare his squad for the Test against Italy on 23 November. He finished fifth on the same horse at Bramham in June, when he had a clear cross-country round, whereas Surl had a fall at the same venue with Kontiki, when she tripped up a step out of water.Results, Digest, page 27. Johnson is not, however, in the least dismayed by the severity of the course Indeed, she seems to relish it.

"I concur with that."Christopher Bartle, who was sixth when riding for the British dressage team at the 1984 Olympics, is now lying fourth on Word Perfect II. "In the US, every rider tells you that you have to go to England and when they get here, they don't want to go home," she said. She was shortlisted for this year's Olympic Games on Tiger One, on whom she is lying third.Tiger One has already competed in two three-star events in the States, but Johnson believes that tomorrow's cross- country course will prove a tougher test. The horse's name was inspired by the Biggles books, as a result of the way he got himself into the air when he first jumped as a three-year-old.Johnson, who is here on a grant from the US equestrian team, had valuable help yesterday from Mark Phillips, who trains the Americans. "She needs to be fitter than most," Surl said, "and I'm confident that I've got her as fit as is humanly possible." Clayton-Bailey and her mount, the eight-year-old James Bigglesworth, are both competing at this level for the first time. Being only half thoroughbred, Kontiki is not the fastest horse around, but compensates for any deficiency in speed by being a trier. Surl, who runs a breaking and schooling yard in Northamptonshire, advertised the effectiveness of his training methods with an excellent test on the chestnut mare, Coxley Kontiki.

Jennifer Johnson, who is on her first trip to England from the United States, is just 0.6pt behind the two Britons in third. Philip Surl and Milla Clayton-Bailey held the joint lead at the conclusion of yesterday's first day of dressage at the Blenheim Vauxhall Monterrey International Horse Trials. "I am not afraid of any initiative that takes rugby league into the next century on a firm footing," Lindsay said."Equally, I am certain that the ambitions of Rugby League (Europe) are the ambitions of the game as a whole and that we will move forward as a family."Just as in other families, however, the more ambitious members are asserting their need for greater independence.Steve Hampson, the Salford full-back placed on report for an apparent trip in the Divisional Premiership final against Keighley, has been banned for the first two matches of next season.The Auckland Warriors second-rower, Stuart Lester, is joining Wigan on a three-year contract, while Lee Crooks is in line to return to his original club, Hull, from Castleford.. "We want the game to be so attractive that people will want to buy into it."The 12 Super League clubs will each be shareholders, but the Rugby League will hold a "golden" share, with which it can veto changes - such as over promotion and relegation - that have implications for the whole game.The move has come because Super League clubs feel that they need to run their own affairs, with their own staff and headquarters, and in that they have the public support of the Rugby League's chief executive, Maurice Lindsay.

There is no reason to be negative about it, but this is all about taking things further from here," said the new company's chairman, Chris Caisley, of the Bradford Bulls.RLE is setting out to generate its own income, to raise the profile and ultimately expand Super League. "We want to expand, but the keynote is quality," Caisley said. "I've always been apprehensive even though I struggled to make 12 stone. Now I'm a wiser person."I have no doubt I will make the light-heavyweight division a glamorous one because people follow characters There are always risks.