Rugby authorities in Wales, Ireland, New Zealand and everywhere else need to be careful they don't alienate ordinary fans and members from the game completely.

Everything is now being geared towards the national game, Team Wales, Team Ireland etc, so that the all-important club member or everyday fan is in danger of being at best neglected and at worst overlooked.

Last week it was the Irish Rugby Union who pulled the plug on their leading players appearing in the first three Celtic League games of the new season because they insisted on a 10-week conditioning period which overran the start of the season.

There was a howl of protest from Wales in particular, claiming it was unfair for top players from Ireland to miss some games while playing in others. Clearly it devalued the competition.

But it appears that Wales are planning the same thing after all. An agreement seems close on a maximum 32 games a season for the national squad men so that sufficient time can be given to conditioning and keeping abreast of their main rivals.

The plan has been devised by WRU fitness chief Andrew Hore who says it is a huge decision, and that by the time of the 2007 World Cup Australia will have had 56 special training weeks, New Zealand 36 and Wales just 16.

England, it appears, have agreed to a 32-game limit and talks have been held between the WRU and the four regions.

But danger lurks and while the needs of the player are paramount an essential ingredient in the overall scheme of things is being considered less and less - the fan.

It's bad enough for many - ask a lot at Newport still - that the major clubs at the top end of professional rugby are no more, that 100 years and more of clubs at the highest level has ceased.

Instead of that regions have come in and while some, myself included, have now accepted a few powerful provinces combining the best talent is the only way to compete in Celtic League and Heineken Cup competition, the authorities are going too far in the other direction.

Of course, international rugby is the shop window and it pays for the whole game, without it there would be no investment in the grass roots.

But the game has to survive and flourish and if fans see they are being short changed they won't support it. Regions are crying out for members, they are urging fans to come through the door, yet the leading players are being prevented from playing in the first few matches and they won't be around while the autumn internationals and the Six Nations are being played either.

It may give younger squad players the opportunity to get some games in - and that is important, too - but fans pay to see the top players taking part.

If this restriction becomes common practice I would say there is a risk of a further influx of overseas players.

Meanwhile, I see no reason to change any of my summer sport comments from last week.

Less than a day after suggesting the Olympics had been seriously downgraded by a succession of doping scandals leading Greek sprinter Kostas Kenteris, favourite to retain his 200m gold, and Ekaterina Thanou missed a mandatory drugs test and were then mysteriously hospitalised after a motor bike accident.

Kenteris, it appears, has got form away from the track and suspicions about him have been there for years. It all proves again, despite the holier-than-thou attitude of some, that the Olympics can't be taken seriously.

I refer you to Ian Wooldridge, possibly the best columnist in this or any other country, when he wrote last week, 'I have refused to report athletic events over the past ten years because it is impossible to know who is cheating and who is not.'

Though England's Test match roll continued West Indies again proved they are nowehere near the standard of previous teams by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory yesterday.

And if you needed evidence that the Americans are going to win the Ryder Cup comfortably you only had to watch the US PGA tournament.

It took a three-way play-off to sort it on Sunday when Vijay Singh belatedly sparkled after a final round 76 still got him into the shoot-out.

Two wonderful fairway woods on a monster course saw him home, but he had two Americans with him in the unlucky Justin Leonard and Chris DiMarco and two more, Phil Mickelson and Chris Riley, in the top half-a-dozen.

You would have bet there would be no European presence, certainly not Darren Clarke, who reminds me of Tim Henman with his brittleness on the big occasion.

And come Ryder Cup time there will be that home frenzy to contend with, the kind from the lunatic Americans at the weekend who shouted 'in the hole' as soon as the ball left the driver.