His partner in midfield, Will Greenwood, is also a non-starter at home to Richmond because of an ankle injury.Yet another centre, Stuart Potter, has a neck injury and to the list is added the full-back Tim Stimpson (shoulder) and the lock Fritz Van Heerden (toe). The work-rate is unbelievably high."That will be in evidence today as Irish field an unchanged side from that which mauled the Tigers, although the Welford Road side is not so fortunate. It was a brave performance, admittedly, owing something to Ornette Coleman, or possibly intended as a cover version of Jimi Hendrix's legendary rendition at Woodstock, all random pauses and bum notes, littered with odd little discordant flights and swoops reminiscent of the electronic gull shrieks from The Birds. It lasted about three weeks, and every second was purgatory.Still, once the game got underway (after an opening pitch from the record- breaking king of the homer, Mark McGwire, who hit 70 of them this season), the pitchers bore out the Mack dictum and ran the show.Brown was first up, and immediately one of the features of baseball on TV that Channel 4 would do well to use freely in their cricket coverage next year, the close-up, came into its own. On Thursday morning it was a case of Star-Mangled Banner courtesy of some actress from the nauseatingly cute TV comedy, Ally McBeal. The son of "Attitude Annie", who rode with the San Diego Hell's Angels and looks like it, is somewhat incongruously a Babe Ruth freak who recently spent $100,000 (pounds 58,000) on memorabilia, including $30,000 on the great one's cap. He planned to wear it to the plate for the World Series until his manager, Joe Torre, told him to think again.

And looking at Torre, who combines the build of Sylvester Stallone and the physiognomy of Joe Pesci, it's impossible to imagine there was much dissent from Wells.Before we got down to the real business, though, there was the surreal business. As history now records, though, the Yankees took the game 3-0 for their 24th championship and the unofficial title of Quite Possibly The Best Team Ever. Unfortunately, the whitewash meant that we were deprived of seeing David Wells, the Yankees pitcher who had started the first game and was due back for the fifth in his home town. One deeply distasteful feature of major American sporting events is the insane need the nation seems to have to wheel on some tone-deaf celebrity to murder their national anthem. JUST AS cricketing sages assert that bowlers win matches, so any bacca-chewing old feller will tell you that pitchers are the key to America's national pastime. The venerable Philadelphia Athletics owner, Connie Mack, once said famously, "Pitching is 70 per cent of baseball" And the chuckers themselves are a breed apart. The fourth game of the World Series (Channel 5, Thursday morning), presented a couple of prime specimens, in the New York Yankees' Andy Pettitte and San Diego Padres' Kevin Brown. With the Padres 3-0 down in the best-of- seven series, they had to win on their own patch to keep the season alive.

Hampered badly on that occasion and could have finished closer. Improving at the right time.Conclusion: COMMANDER COLLINS is crying out for this mile and gets the vote here. Timahs has a great deal of confidence behind him and Tumbleweed Quartet is getting better all the time.. Most impressive when landing a Newmarket maiden last month on his only outing so far. Marked improvement when third in Champagne Stakes here, beaten just over two lengths by Auction House and Commander Collins. Could be virtually anything and his connections have backed their judgement with hard cash.Tumbleweed Quartet: Won minor event at Newbury then third in a fair race at the same course. Housemaster: Won a maiden in June at Yarmouth and then was fifth in Listed race at Royal Ascot to Rhapsodist.

Not really up to this sort of company on the basis of previous form. Magno: Made all to score in a York maiden earlier this month and repel Lightning Arrow's challenge by a neck. That does not seem to merit a great deal of consideration in today's class.Stormy Skye: This target seems a trifle ambitious after his third, beaten nine lengths, in a Listed Ascot mile event earlier this month.The Exhibition Fox: It is difficult to see why he is in the line-up on the face of his only run when eighth and beaten 19 lengths in a York maiden earlier this month.Timahs: Has been supplemented at a cost of pounds 15,000. Commander Collins: Going the right way. Won on his debut at Newmarket in July then went down by a head to Auction House in Champagne Stakes here, finishing strongly over seven furlongs Improving, and will appreciate the mile here Auction House was second in the Dewhurst a week ago. It's a disappointment for the lads who looked after the horse and worked with him But we must not dwell on the disappointment We must remember the great pleasure he has given us.''.