It's the end of the road for skipper Eales

By WYNNE GRAY

Wallaby captain John Eales is expected to announce today that he will retire from rugby after the final Tri-Nations test against the All Blacks in Sydney next month.

As speculation increased that Eales would make the call to coincide with the launch of his biography in Brisbane, the conjecture was that halfback George Gregan would be the replacement skipper.

Eales, a veteran of 83 tests, will follow coach Rod Macqueen into retirement after a career littered with success.

The 31-year-old lock has played in two World Cup-winning sides, led Australia to Bledisloe Cup and Tri-Nations success, and the last month's series win against the Lions. The only significant trophy he has missed is the Super 12.

Eales has been Wallaby captain since 1996 and but for serious injuries which eliminated him from the 1993 year and most of 1999, he would have played 100 internationals.

He also missed a large chunk of this year's Super 12 because of Achilles' tendon troubles.

There was a suspicion that injury might eliminate him from test rugby this season, but Eales battled on.

During the build-up to last week's Tri-Nations match in Pretoria, Eales confided to team-mates that he would make his retirement decision public when his biography, written by former Wallaby forward Peter FitzSimons, was revealed at Ballymore.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand Rugby Football Union is looking for some help from Sanzar partners Australia and South Africa before they agree to the expansion of the Super 12 in 2003.

The NZRFU was never comfortable with a Super 14 series, but agreed to it at last month's Sanzar meeting as long as they got the group's support for other projects.

They were to get a better share of gate-takings from All Black tests in Europe, a better season schedule and a decent two-month break for players.

But Australian rugby boss John O'Neill is now presenting that deal as a set of ransom demands from the NZRFU.

"If what New Zealand is saying is, 'If you don't fulfil all these conditions then you don't get an expanded Super 12,' we might be waiting well beyond 2003 for the introduction of two extra teams," O'Neill said.

That attitude drew a strong retort from NZRFU chairman Murray McCaw, who said Sanzar had another meeting this month and then had to send their ideas to the key meeting of the International Rugby Board in November.

The IRB could quash any recommendations from Sanzar.

"To speculate now about what might or might not happen later in the year if certain parts of the package can't be progressed as fast as others is premature," McCaw said.

In other developments, the NZRFU has extended its contract with Chiefs coach John Mitchell to October 2003.

The English union had been trying to lure Mitchell back.

But an NZRFU spokesman said Mitchell had been given an extended staff coaching contract which would take him past the next World Cup.