Jonathan Davies will come out of retirement to made a guest appearance for Lansdowne in their 125th anniversary game against the French Barbarians at Lansdowne Road tomorrow evening (kick-off 6.0, schoolchildren admitted free).
The former Welsh international and Great Britain rugby league player may play at centre given the presence of out-halves Richard Governey and former Lansdowne player Eric Elwood in the club's squad.
Other guests will include the New Zealand Maori full-back Warren Johnson, Irish winger Dennis Hickie, other former Lansdowne players in Mark McDermott and Alan Reddan, and Milan's New Zealand number eight Richard Turner, who may play at lock.
There will also be a presentation at half-time to the four Irish players who toured with the Lions in South Africa. Meanwhile, the draw will take place for the European Cup and European Conference quarter-finals in Dublin this afternoon. Connacht are resigned to playing away from home as the eighth-ranked pool winners. Indeed, this also means that should Connacht win their quarterfinal, on the weekend of November 8th-9th, they will also be drawn away from home in the semi-finals on December 20th (the day, incidentally, that Ireland play Italy away in an international friendly in Bologna).
The ERC Ltd board of directors will also meet tomorrow to decide on the charge of disrepute brought against the Pontypridd's Dale McIntosh, for gesturing toward the crowd after his dismissal in the pool match against Brive.
The board must also be worried at the failure of the competitions to make significant impact on the viewing public. Sky's coverage has not attracted one audience of more than 150,000.
