A seminar in London next month will offer everyone within the sport, from players and coaches to admininistrators and fans, a chance to discuss the state of the game. The seminar, organised by Rugby News magazine in association with The Independent and SBC Warburg, will be held at the QE2 Conference Centre, Westminster on Friday 28 February.Entitled "Rugby's Future - a discussion on the state of the game", the seminar will be attended by leading figures throughout the sport.Speakers will include Nick Farr-Jones, the former Australia captain; Tony Hallett, the secretary of the RFU; Cliff Morgan, the legendary former British Lion and Wales international; and Dan Rooney, President of the Pittsburgh Steelers American football club.A registration fee of pounds 29.50 includes mid-morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea for delegates. "Cardiff is the big one and I have no intention of missing it," he said.. Rugby union is emerging from months of turmoil as it starts to cope with the challenges of the new professional era. However, today's all-First Division games between Swansea and Dunvant and Caerphilly and Llanelli are overshadowed by the derby at Rodney Parade tomorrow, where Cardiff take on their ancient rivals, Newport. Richard Goodey, the Newport captain, has declared himself available despite a rib injury. But seven league defeats on the bounce compares horribly to Gloucester's six straight victories and the last thing Martin Corry's dysfunctional outfit need at the moment is a white-hot cup derby against a form side.With Leicester's big-gun tie at Bath put back a fortnight because of this afternoon's Heineken Cup final, the weekend's classiest Pilkington encounter is likely to be found at Enfield tomorrow when Saracens, high as kites after winning a capital derby against Harlequins last Sunday, take on their north London neighbours, Wasps.It will be instructive; the theory that Michael Lynagh, Francois Pienaar and the other senior overseas signings might disappear into their bank accounts when the going got tough was exploded in the Quins match and Wasps will have to play better than of late to survive.Quins go to Rotherham, of the Second Division, without their most experienced international front-rowers, Jason Leonard and Keith Wood - Leonard's absence means an afternoon's captaincy for a certain Will Carling - but the Yorkshiremen have virtually conceded defeat. We snapped out of our defeat mode and maybe they will too, but we can only try to ensure that their unsuccessful run continues."Armed with seven internationals, including the England tight forwards Mark Regan and Simon Shaw, Bristol look competitive on paper.

Bristol may be the poor cousins of West Country rugby these days - two current England forwards are no guarantee of First Division survival - but they need sympathy like the proverbial hole in the head Particularly when that sympathy emanates from Gloucester. Richard Hill, the former Bath scrum-half and current coach of a resurgent Cherry and White side expected to nip Bristol's Pilkington Cup campaign in the bud at Kingsholm this afternoon, raised a few local hackles yesterday by admitting: "I really do feel sorry for them. "We endured a long losing spell earlier in the season and I understand exactly what the Bristol players and coaches are going through. Replacements: N Malone, A Kardooni, N Fletcher, E Miller, L Lloyd, P Freshwater, D West.Brive: S Viars; G Fabre, C Lamaison, D Venditti, S Carrat; A Penaud (capt), P Carbonneau; D Casadei, L Travers, R Crespy, E Allegret, G Ross, L Van der Linden, D Buboisset, G Kacala. Their line- out, with Martin Johnson in such Olympian form at the front, is likely to be the dominant feature of an otherwise even forward battle. More importantly, the Tigers can rely on huge travelling support; there will be no l'esprit de clocher (the spirit of the bells) for Brive to draw strength from today, and that could prove their undoing.HEINEKEN EUROPEAN CUP FINAL (Cardiff Arms Park; 2.30pm today): Leicester: J Liley; S Hackney, W Greenwood, S Potter, R Underwood; R Liley, A Healey; G Rowntree, R Cockerill, D Garforth, M Johnson, M Poole, J Wells, D Richards (capt), N Back. Christophe Lamaison is Brive's No 1 accumulator with 62 as well.Two obvious factors stack the odds in Leicester's favour.

Unlike most of the more fancied runners, notably Bath and Toulouse, both Leicester and Brive managed significant victories away from home - the Tigers in Pau and the Frenchmen in Belfast.The parallels between the two are striking: Leicester have scored 174 points in six matches, Brive just seven fewer; the Tigers have run in 21 tries compared to their opponents' 17; Rob Liley, the Leicester goalkicker until Dwyer handed the job to his brother John at the semi-final stage, is his club's leading scorer with 62 points. "But I would also say that the best European performers could survive quite comfortably in the lower reaches of the rival tournament down south."Dwyer's fellow Australian and Leicester coaching colleague, the former Wallaby lock Duncan Hall, is equally impressed. "I worked with Queensland in last year's Super 12, when we reached the semi-finals. The standard was incredibly high, but I have to say that the excitement this tournament has generated is way above anything I experienced in Brisbane. The whole of Leicester is alive at the prospect of the match."It is appropriate that the final should be contested by the only unbeaten sides in the competition.