Rugby League: Wigan weigh in to Reilly row: Club and country in dispute as players stay away from training camp

WIGAN have hit back at accusations that they prevented their players attending a Great Britain training camp by alleging that those players have been intimidated and pumped for information by the Great Britain coach, Malcolm Reilly.

The messiest club-versus-country argument that the game has seen for years began when Wigan declined to nominate any players for an Under-21 camp to be held this week. Wigan players have recently provided the backbone of the Under-21 side, just as they do at full international level.

Reilly appealed to the new Wigan coach, John Dorahy, and the club eventually told him that the six players he wanted - Paul Atcheson, Jason Robinson, Nigel Wright, Mick Cassidy, Andrew Farrell and Barrie- Jon Mather - would be at Lilleshall for the five day camp to prepare for a match against New Zealand in October.

'Last week, each of the six players told me they would not be coming,' Reilly said. 'It stinks. The club says it is because they do not want to come, but I can't accept that. I'm quite clear in my mind about who doesn't want them to come.'

Reilly says he is 'very, very disappointed by Wigan's attitude' and has accused them of selfishness. He also says that individual faxes sent to the club to explain the consequences of staying away never reached the players.

The Rugby League is equally exercised about the matter and has ordered the club to appear in front of the board of directors at the end of the month. The board has unlimited powers to punish Wigan for a breach of the by-laws and a fine of pounds 10,000 is being mentioned at headquarters as the level of disapproval the club can expect.

The Wigan chairman, Jack Robinson, has given the clearest possible indication that he will not be going in meekly or apologetically.

'We have done nothing wrong,' he said. 'We have not stopped any players going to Lilleshall, although we have told them that we would prefer them to stay and prepare for the new season with Wigan. Despite that, Atcheson and Mather have decided that they want to go and they are free to do so.'

Of the other four, he said, two feared losing their jobs if they were to take a week off, one was moving house and one had suffered a death in the family.

Robinson said that Dorahy had refused to pass Reilly's faxes to the players because he regarded them as intimidatory. 'It was an attempt to bully the players into attending and he was not willing to subject them to that,' he said.

But the most embarrassing aspect of the whole business is Robinson's charge that Reilly has used his position as Great Britain coach to extract information from Wigan players which he can then use when his own Halifax side play them.

'It is wrong in principle that he should have these two roles,' Robinson said. 'Players have already told me that he is always asking what Wigan are doing. He is one of our main rivals and he wants to take six of our players away for a week and analyse everything about them.'

Reilly denies any conflict of interest, but the position was simpler when he did the Great Britain job on a full- time basis.

The issue could hardly be more awkward for the League's chief executive, Maurice Lindsay. He has been Reilly's greatest ally in arguing for the primacy of international rugby and he is also the former chairman of Wigan.