Rugby League: Broncos still bucking: World club match on

THE World Club Challenge between this season's First Division champions and the Australian premiers, the Brisbane Broncos, has been rescued. Brisbane, the first Australian winners after beating Wigan at Central Park last season, were threatening to pull out of the event because they felt that a projected date of 13 June put their players under too much pressure.

'They have now come up with 1 June, which is fine by us,' the Rugby League's chief executive, Maurice Lindsay, said. 'It is 10 days after our premiership final, so, even if the British entrants are involved in that, there will be time for them to get over their bumps and bruises and get to Brisbane.' The match will be at the Broncos' ANZ Stadium and should attract a capacity crowd of more than 70,000. The British champions have also been invited to play a match against the Auckland Warriors.

The Warriors coach, John Monie, however, has left England without enlisting Kevin Iro of Leeds or Castleford's Tawera Nikau for the club due to enter Australia's Winfield Cup in 1995, the salary cap rendering it impossible for Auckland to match what leading New Zealanders are getting in England. Ironically, a salary cap is to be proposed to the League's directors tomorrow.

The Warriors chief executive, Ian Robson, has also ruled out the possibility of signing the All Black, Va'aiga Tuigamala, predicting that he will join Wigan at the end of the current tour. The Wigan chairman, Jack Robinson, has admitted remaining interested in the winger, who turned the club down earlier this year.

The Kiwi tourist Stephen Kearney is being kept in hospital in France for observation following a fall from his hotel balcony that is said to have caused slight bruising to the brain.