Arsenal stars Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott, Andrey Arshavin and Bacary Sagna dressed as furry animals in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (GOSH), the Gunners’ Charity of the Season.

There are a couple of important decisions to be made shortly in the sphere of international coaching.

Tony Smith did the inevitable and announced that he was going when England lost the Four Nations final to Australia. The RFL must have known that was coming so you would hope that they have had plenty of tgime to think about who they want as a successor. All the same, they have started a recruitment procedure that looks likely to take months rather than weeks.

I don't think they will do it, but I'd make an offer to John Kear. He has a job at Wakefield, but I don't think he would be able to resist another tilt at a job he lost after the 2000 World Cup.

He's technically more proficient than he was then and he still has this happy knack of getting players 'up' for big matches.

And that, rather then teaching them how to play rugby league is surely what coaching a national side is all about.

Then there is Bobbie Goulding. Despite losing all three games in the Four Nations, The French Federation were happy with the progress they had made under his coaching.

They will be rather less impressed, one suspects, by his antics at a dinner last week, which are currently being investigated by the RFL.

If they find that he was guilty of abusing and assaulting other guests, the League's powers of punishment are limited. They can hardly suspend him from a tournament which has already finished, but they could impose a fine.

The real question, though, is what attitude the French take. However pleased they are with the new enthusiasm he has engendered among their players, they don't need a coach who might run amok.

These are murky waters which might be clearer when I get back from the Nile in a couple of weeks. Any blogging between now and then will be in hieroglyphics.

The England jersey is still very much up for grabs ahead of the South Africa World Cup.

Today it's been reported that Ben Foster is angling for a move away from Manchester United in order to further his chances.

Meanwhile, David James has insisted he will be fit for the World Cup after Fabio Capello issued a warning that if the Portsmouth man fails to prove he is injury free then he won't be picked.

And with doubts surrounding the two main contenders, Robert Green of West Ham is worth a shout, as is Joe Hart of Birmingham.

Or are England so desperate that it's time to call on Spaniard Manuel Almunia of Arsenal, who now qualifies for a British passport?

Have your say on the issue using the comment box below and CLICK HERE to vote in The Independent poll.

Thank goodness the campaign against trumpets is finally beginning to build some momentum.

I've been saying it for months - if those damn hooter/horn things are not banned from the World Cup, the whole tournament will descend into ear-bleeding chaos.

I first became aware of them during the Confederations Cup. If watching New Zealand in action wasn't bad enough, the fact my senses were overloaded by the incessant din ringing around the stadium had me pleading for mercy.

That's the thing with the horns - they're relentless. Where clapping your hands or singing songs is hard to maintain for 90 minutes, these horn blowers can apparently flourish from the first whistle to last.

Some might say it adds some atmosphere - it doesn't. If horns were blown when something exciting happened, fair enough. But they're also blown when the ball is being passed around in defence or a player scratches his bum before taking a throw in.

With the same assurance with which I can say David James is useless and Wayne Rooney will get injured, if these hooters are not banned you will begging England to get knocked out simply so you can stop watching.

Picture courtesy of Getty Images

We all know that it will be good for rugby league in this country if England win the Four Nations this weekend. The question is how good.

Well, there will be no ticker-tape parade through the centre of London, perhaps just a bit of bunting in the streets of Batley and Dewsbury. Those in the know will recognise what an achievement it has been, but the rest of the world will carry on very much as before.

I've found the tournament a bit of a hard sell this time, possibly because England does not have the frisson of Great Britain in rugby league.

Getting to the final has lifted the level of interest among the previously uncommited, but not that much.

And, of course, we still have to win the damn thing. The grand strategy is something like this:

1) Pray for rain
2) Play the game down a 20 yard stripe through the middle of Ellend Road where our forwards could take on anyone
3) Stop Darren Lockyer throwing that miss-out pass to Greg Inglis
4) Failing that, hit him with the kitchen sink fractionally after he gets the ball
5) Keep praying for rain.

I would like to announce my retirement from international football.

Although the possibility of playing in the World Cup in South Africa is tempting, I feel it is the right thing to do.

Years of smoking and my general lack of fitness (I haven't kicked a football in about three-months) have obviously played a part in my decision but more than anything, I want to concentrate on giving my all for The Independent.

In no part was it influenced by the fact I had about a one-in-a-million chance of actually being a part of the squad.

As I'm sure Luke Young does, I wish Fabio Capello and the England team every success for the future.

Manchester United's Jonny Evans has electric studs in his boots. Applied to Drogba's poppy, they create a curent which makes him wiggle like an occupant of Old Smokey. Nemanja Vidic deserves praise for not bothering to conceal his amusement.

The RFL's board of directors faces a difficult decision on Friday when it discusses the future of Gateshead and, by implication, that of Leigh.

The Thunder are on the brink of going into administration, which would bring a nine point deduction.

The question is whether it would apply to next season, or retrospectively to last, in which case it would relegate then from the Championship to Championship 1.

The irony of that is that Gateshead seem to recognise themselves that they would better off regrouping in the lower division.

That would have the side-effect of saving Leigh from the drop into the third tier of the professional game. It is not a division that a club with their facilities, their coaching and their wage bill has any business being in.

Leigh's argument at the get-together to welcome the second coming of Ian Millward this week was a simple one.

Okay, we finished in the relegation places, but if there is re-arranging to be done we're better in the higher bracket and Gateshead are better off in the lower.

The danger is that you shoot the credibility of the competition full of holes when you start deciding issues off the field rather than on it.

But you could argue that the League is already doing that when it hands out an exemption from relegation to Toulouse.

It's a tricky one, but what the League must not do is make the Championship 1 fixture list even more chaotic than it was last season.

Some of the gaps between home games must have made it close to impossible to run clubs as businesses.

Does Mike Ashley simply enjoy pissing off Newcastle supporters? Does he want to be the most loathed man on Tyneside? This is the news that Newcastle today re-named their stadium as the sportsdirect.com @ St James' Park Stadium.

Now, it's fair enough that in the current climate football clubs look at whatever possible revenue streams there are, but sportsdirect.com @ St James' Park? It's possibly the most ridiculous thing since Dennis Wise landed a job as an executive director (football).

It's also the fact that Sports Direct is Ashley's own company. It's just rubbing it in Geordies faces that he's still there.

Yet, although the name is stupid, it does give us an excuse to dream up some other potential sponsorship deals (admittedly these get progressively worse as they go on, but feel free to add your own).

• If Fulham were sponsored by Cathedral City: Cottage Cheese
• If Sunderland were sponsored by Rivita: Stadium of Light Snacks
• If Aston Villa were sponsored by Her Majesty The Queen: Villa Park-ER (terrible)
• If Chelsea were sponsored by an old people's home: Stamford Bridge Club (even worse)
• If Tottenham were sponsored by bread from the 80s: Mighty White Hart Lane
• If Derby were sponsored by a gay awareness organisation: Gay Pride Park Stadium

Footballers rejoice. If you play away from home (and I don't mean at Old Trafford) there's a 77 per cent chance that your girlfriend won't dump you.

That's according to Eggcatcher.com who spoke to over 1000 women attached to rugby and football players.

Now I know most footballers like a bet and with odds like those it might be worth a punt. Just look at Ashley Cole. He had a go and look at him now, as happy as larry. So get yourselves down to Chinawhites and try your luck.

Meanwhile, if you're a rugby player then think again. I'm afraid your other halves have set the bar a little higher. Rugby WAGs say there's a 73 per cent chance they would kick you into touch if they found out you were playing away from home.

I'm always fascinated by games that polarise opinion and last Saturday at The Stoop was a case in point.

The Australia-New Zealand Four Nations match was an out-and-out classic according to Sky. That was a view echoed by most people I spoke to on the night.

On the other hand, a lot of the Anzac press corps were less than overwhelmed and thought that both sides could play a lot better. That was pretty much the verdict back home.

Who's got it right? Well, I incline to the former view. I've seen games that were more poetry-in-motion, but for pace and intensity I haven't seen anything like it for a long time. But then again I haven't been able to watch much NRL over the last few months.

The passage of play that summed it up for me came early on. The Kiwis had made a series of mistakes and put themselves under several minutes of pressure. But as soon as they got the ball their first few carries were absolutely explosive - and that was the way the game went from then on.

Technically, I'm sure both sides can improve - so the don't-get-excited camp are right as well - but that is a fairly terrifying prospect.
 
So what should England do about it, in light of their own display against France, for the game against Australia this Saturday?

Tony Smith's room for manoeuvre is limited, but it cries out for a bit of fine tuning. I'm not sure that Richie Myler, even with his two tries, did enough to hold his place. The dead cert is that Sam Tomkins has to be in the 17 somewhere, if necessary at the expense of Scott Moore, whose nosedive in form continued at Doncaster.

The other change I would make is to have Eorl Crabtree on the bench. Alright, I'm a signed-up fan of the bloke, but I just feel he might have that shock value that turns games.

There is no guaranteed right answer to the question of how to fit three outstanding young half-back prospects into the England side for the Four Nations.

It is ironic that at a time when we are so short of talent in other areas we are spoilt for choice in the most important positions of all.

Given that Danny McGuire is the senior man at the front of the queue, there is simply no way of fitting Sam Tomkins, Kyle Eastmond and Richard Myler into the 17.

The solution Tony Smith has come up with is to start with Myler, put Eastmond on the bench and leave out Tomkins altogether. It is not what I would have done, if - god forbid - it had been my responsibility.

I'd have to have Tomkins in the 17, because he has the knack of scoring tries out of nothing. Against Australia and New Zealand, I have the feeling that is what we are going to need.

And yet I can see the arguments for doing it the other way. Each of the three offers different things - in Myler's case the more classical scrum-half game, in Eastmond's the bustling power and pace that recalls a young Jason Robinson.

It truly is an embarrassment of riches. If only that could be said for the rest of the side.

Rafa Benitez may be defiant, but things are a little rum at Anfield at the moment (though to their credit, the beachball remains not guilty). Sam Wallace has it pretty much right when he says that Liverpool appeared on the brink of a breakthrough last season - and have gone backwards since... So will the board get tired of under-achievement and over-reliance on Gerrard and Torres? Or will the fanctions and uncertainty at board level save him. Or perhaps things will improve on the field. That's always a possibility.

Anyhow, place your bets on Rafa's fate:

Tony Smith couldn't resist having a pop at the media when he announced his England squad.

He wouldn't be playing our game of inflating expectations and then getting shirty when the national side fails to meet them, he said, as though that is some sort of pre-conceived policy on the part of the rugby league press.

Expectations were high before the World Cup because, in most departments, we didn't have a bad squad. The failure was that it didn't add up to the sum of its parts - which is as good a working definition of under-achievement as any.

All the same, I'm prepared to do my bit. As I told Tony, if it does any good to dampen down expectations at this stage, I'm ready to help.
To be fair, the coach has made a pretty solid start on that project.

Some of the names in the squad will do a good job of banishing any starry-eyed optimism.

For instance, it is amazing to see Paul Sykes there after his World Cup and not much less surprising to find Chris Bridge included. Bridge has clearly impressed Smith since he took over at Warrington - and he is undeniably a useful and versatile player at club level.

But a Test centre - which is what Smith sees him as - well, I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, but I just can't see it.

I'd have had a word with Keith Senior about going around one more time. A short-term expedient? Of course it is, but not as short-term as picking Lee Smith, who will be a rugby union player at the end of November.

And having Senior there would surely have been a help to Ryan Hall in the early stages of what should be a long Test career.

If you're looking for young centres of potential to include in the squad, I'd have been inclined to look at Kris Welham and Michael Lawrence. Both young and raw, of course, but real centres in the making.

Of all the World Cup players weeded out, the one I feel sorry for is Rob Burrow, who must wonder what he has done wrong this season. He is really the victim of circumstances beyond his control, in that England suddenly has three exciting 20-year-old half-back prospects - Myler, Tomkins and Eastmond - all of whom Smith understandably wants to introduce at this level as soon as possible.

At 27, Burrow has been pushed out by this potential golden generation of half-back talent.

The luckiest player in the squad, based on his late-season form, is Scott Moore, who lost it badly in the closing weeks of the campaign. He is fortunate that Smith has a long memory and can recall his form in mid-summer.

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti came out with a rather bizarre quote today. He said that "(John) Terry is my pet."

This strange turn of phrase reminded me of something, someone... oh yes, the excellent series on ITV - 'Paris Hilton's British Best Friend'. The premise of the show is that desperate wannabes vie with each other over a series of challenges to become Miss Hilton's 'best friend' (whatever that entails). Each episode, the blonde heiress picks her favourite contestant of the week, or her 'pet' as she likes to call them.

Based on this, and assuming Ancelotti is a fan of the show (why wouldn't he be), it would appear that JT is his current favourite among the Chelsea squad. This got me thinking, wouldn't it be fun if Ancelotti was to set his players a task each week to determine who his latest 'pet' was?

A regular challenge on Hilton's show is for the contestants to give themselves a makeover. I'm thinking Didier Drogba letting his hair out loose. He's been trying for a rather serious, slicked back look of late but wouldn't he look nice with a full-on afro in the mould of that irritating guy off X-Factor? Maybe Frank Lampard could put his hair in corn-rows (it couldn't look any worse than when Beckham did it). Although I think the player with most scope for a makeover would have to be Petr Cech. He's obviously a fan of hats (he's been wearing one for no good reason for some time now), but maybe he could spruce up the rugby-style head guard. Trilbies are very in right now, as are flat caps - and keepers used to look great in those back in the day.

Another popular challenge as Hilton searches for her latest 'pet' is to prove that contestants can be trusted by seeing what they say when they don't think she's around. Ancelotti could stick a camera in the changing room and see what the players get up to. I can just picture it: Ashley Cole asking why Guus Hiddink is now talking in Italian and Michael Ballack mocking his strong accent with a few well placed 'ehs' and a 'it was a game-a two-a halves'. Michael Essien improvising one of Ancelotti's famous rants alone would make it worth turning this concept into a full on show.

But in the end, Ancelotti must pick a new 'pet' after JT's reign comes to an end. I'm plumping for Daniel Sturridge, if for no other reason than needing some encouragement. It's been rumoured that the other players have been calling him Shaun Wright-Phillips after he became the latest Man City player to move to Stamford Bridge despite everyone saying he would never get a game.

Image: Getty Images

Like most people in this country, I don't know Michael Maguire. Never met him; don't remember him as a player.

He might turn out to be the best coaching appointment Wigan ever made, but his impending arrival is still a condemnation of the British coach development programme.

For all the rhetoric over the last 20 years, when a club like Wigan needs a new man at the helm they look to Australasia.

Chairman Ian Lenagan was quite upfront about it. Australian RL is miles ahead and, if you want quick results - which he does - you need an Australian coach.

But it isn't as though he's bringing in Wayne Bennett or Craig Bellamy; he's bringing in Bellamy 's 35-year-old assistant, who has never coached first grade.

Have we reaally reached the stage where he is better qualified to coach in Super League than a man who has won Grand Finals and coached the national team.

If that is the case, I suggest that everyone charged with bringing through British coaches over the last two decades should be sacked immediately.

As I say, Maguire might turn out to be the most inspired choice since John Monie - who, incidentally, was an established first grade coach who had won Grand Finals. He might be the key to unlocking the potential of Shaun Wane, who, if his reserve grade side is any reflection, has much to offer in the long-term.

But it's not the long term with which Wigan are concerned just now. They want to win something next season and Maguire is the man who is expected to deliver.

No pressure there, then.

It's a fair assessment to say the England cricket team need a kick up the back side, but it seems someone in the international set-up is taking the advice a little too seriously.

Following Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood has become the second international in a week to suffer an injury to the buttock. It seems a strange place to get injured, which leads to the arse kicking theory.

And with fixtures against South Africa coming up, who are we to question their methods. Since England's Ashes win, the side has been derisory. They need something to buck up their ideas.

But for the England players sakes, let us hope other motivational clichés don't get taken literally. The consequences of either 'pull your finger out' or 'break a leg' could be disastrous.

Bradford have bowed to the inevitable by coming to terms with South Sydney for the early release of Sam Burgess from his contract.

The Test forward has agreed a four-year deal with the Bunnies, starting next season, with the Bulls receiving a substantial fee by way of compensation.

The unavoidable fact in all this is that Burgess wanted to go and, from the point of view of fulfilling his potential as a player, is quite right to want to.

Of course, the lifestyle is an attraction and it must be flattering when someone of the worldwide profile of Russell Crowe comes head-hunting you.

But Burgess is a serious-minded young player and he knows the only way to kick on is to play in the best competition in the world. I'm not sure he's picked the right club, but he wasn't going to improve shouldering so much of the burden at Bradford.

He now forms part of a little exodus of British forwards to Oz, but I can't get too alarmed by that.

Gareth Ellis has been a huge success at Wests Tigers, who have also picked up Wigan's promising Mark Flanagan.

The difference between this and the raids on our playing strength in the 70s is that the numbers are a lot less and that there is no issue over international availability. 30-odd years ago, players like Malcolm Reilly were lost to the Great Britain team when they signed for Australian clubs.

Now Ellis and Burgess will still be available to play for their country - and we should feel the benefit of there antipodean adventures, just as we did with Adrian Morley.

One thing that all play-off formats have in common is that you don’t really know whether they work until you try them out.

Super League had to come up with a new system when it switched to an eight-team play off and the one they settled on looked as good as any.

That was until last weekend, when its faults were all too apparent.

The whole point of play-offs is to guarantee a high degree of intensity at the end of the season. But what should have been the two big games were cagey affairs with plenty held back.

Neither Hull KR nor Huddersfield were exactly heart-broken to have lost. Don’t get me wrong; they would have preferred to win and be one match from Old Trafford.

But the punishment for losing is not exactly stringent. They both get home games against lower-placed sides this weekend and then the possibility of a second crack at Leeds or Saints.

No wonder there was a bit of urgency and desperation missing.

Most of the comment on the new format has concentrated on the eight-team cut-off or the coach’s call on semi-final opponents. But the first is unavoidable if a 14-team competition with no relegation is to sustain interest, whilst the second is merely a gimmick that can be turned on and off at will.

The basic structural fault that has come to light is a more serious issue altogether.

What should be done? Other possible formats should be studied in detail. There’s the one currently in use in
Australia, although that has plenty of critics.

Or how’s this for a retro solution; one plays eight and so on. Sudden death. No messing.

The leading clubs would no doubt complain that they are being insufficiently rewarded, but it would produce more exciting rugby than last weekend.

And if you can’t beat team number eight at home you don’t really deserve to go to Old Trafford, do you?