They lost Anthony Farrell, sent off for a high tackle on Dean Treister, with six minutes remaining before Hull grabbed a late try through Kirk Yeaman, Cooke’s failed conversion attempt summing up the visitors’ afternoon.Huddersfield added Super League leaders Leeds to their growing list of scalps with a 30-24 victory at the McAlpine Stadium on Saturday.The Giants, who had already defeated champions St Helens and Wigan at the McAlpine Stadium this year, ended a 38-year wait for a win over Leeds in dramatic fashion.Brandon Costin snatched a sensational win with an 80th-minute try to deny the Rhinos, who had fought back from 24-12 down to level the scores.”It was a pretty scrappy game, but we were good enough to keep our composure,” the Huddersfield coach Tony Smith said. Paul Devlin opened the scoring on three minutes, and although Hull went ahead when Paul Cooke converted Adam Maher’s try in the sixth minute, it was one-way traffic from then on.At the interval the home side went in 34-6 up after Adam Hughes, Shane Millard, Stuart Spruce, Phil Cantillon and Julian O’Neill – who was also on target with his kicking duties, booting seven goals in the match – all touched down.Further scores from Jason Demetriou and Hughes again after the restart completed the rout. The Vikings lost at St Helens last weekend, but boosted their play-off hopes against an injury-hit Hull side, who missed the chance to go back into third.
Widnes now find themselves just a point behind sixth place and still have matches against the teams above them.The Vikings all but won the game in the first half. Widnes recorded their first win over Hull in Super League as they ran in eight tries at the Halton Stadium yesterday. Not since 1999 have six drivers won races, or four drivers been in title contention at the season’s midpoint.The infighting will be the last thing on their minds when Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen, Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya go to the grid at Silverstone on Sunday.. Ecclestone, however, suggested that agreement is still, “miles and miles and miles away”.All of the polemics of this multi-million dollar sport are an ironic backdrop to one of the best seasons in years, in which revisions to the regulations and greater effort from Williams and McLaren have taken the fight to Ferrari. But I think it will be resolved well before the end of the year.”Dr Gerhard Gribkowsky, of Bayerische Landesbank, said in France that a deal offering teams double their current share of the pie plus profit-sharing had been ignored by the GPWC teams, but that agreement could be reached, “within 10 days if everyone sat round a table together”.

It is inevitable that something that is as complex as this is going to take a bit of time. If no agreement is reached between the two opposing factions before 2008, an acrimonious civil war could destroy the sport.Dennis, a GPWC prime mover, said recently: “We are very close to finding a good commercial balance for the future. Ecclestone, and his fellow shareholders represented by Bayeriche Landesbank, take the view that those in favour of the GPWC are ingrates who got rich because of the structure he created. That is when the Grand Prix World Championship alliance of major motor manufacturers bent on self-determination is due to start, in direct opposition to the FIA’s existing World Championship run in conjunction with the Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder.Those in favour of the GPWC see it as freedom from the financial shackles imposed under Ecclestone’s regime.

Williams, which this week will announce a deal with Budweiser, has already taken the innovative step of enlisting the NiQuitin CQ brand which aims to help smokers to stop.But the greatest threat to the present format of Formula One lies at the end of 2007, when the Concorde Agreement expires. This has been coming for a long time and the remaining six teams all derive their sponsorship income from non-tobacco sources. At the end of 2006 a pan-European ban on tobacco advertising will finally see the likes of Marlboro (Ferrari); West (McLaren); Mild Seven (Renault) and Lucky Strike (BAR) driven from the sport. After initial resistance, this has generally been welcomed by the manufacturers and teams as a worthwhile attempt to reduce costs.In the longer term, Formula One faces other threats. Thus engines must be good for 800 kilometres (497 miles) rather than 400km. “We believe the attackers are just individuals acting in their own selfish interest, because we do feel welcomed by all sections of the community.”Africans from here are good ambassadors; they go and tell people back in Africa and elsewhere that the bad image presented of Northern Ireland is the wrong image, that it is an open society, filled with warm, receptive people.

Lee Briers helped himself to 26 points against an inept London yesterday in another display that begged the question of why he cannot get anywhere near the Great Britain squad.
Briers was one of a number of outstanding performers as the Wolves drew level with Castleford in sixth place in Super League on the same points difference. Further tries from Chris Beverley, Stuart Littler (his second) and Alan Hunt completed the turnaround.. The Reds trailed 12-4 at the break, but they improved after the restart and scored early through captain Malcolm Alker. We have got to sort it out.”National League One leaders Salford extended their unbeaten run to 10 matches with a 24-12 win over Hull KR, who had threatened to cause an upset at The Willows. “Every team has a difficult period and, hopefully, we can say this is our dip. “We’ve lost two of our last three games and last week we didn’t play particularly well,” he said. “The thing they’ve got going for them is that they play as a team.”The Rhinos remain top of the table despite a third defeat of the season, but they were stunned by the ferocity of Huddersfield’s tackling and the enthusiasm of their kick-and-chase.The Leeds coach Daryl Powell admitted his team were going through a slump.