Luke Robinson, Andrew Dunemann and Stephen Myler are all unfit and Lowes, the former Great Britain hooker, played in a friendly against Swinton last week.The St Helens captain, Paul Sculthorpe, is a doubtful starter for his side’s opening fixture at Harlequins on Saturday. Paul Handforth has been ruled out with an ankle problem, so Ryan McGoldrick will make his debut at stand-off.Hull are without Shayne McMenemy and Chris Chester, but give first appearances to Sid Domic and Lee Radford.The Leeds coach, Tony Smith, has said that he will not stand in the way of Barrie McDermott making a comeback for Widnes, despite the former Great Britain prop’s job on the Rhinos coaching staff.”I’ve nothing against him playing again, provided it doesn’t interfere with his job with us,” Smith said.McDermott retired at the end of last season at 33, but the Widnes coach, Steve McCormack, said: “He has kept himself really fit and he is still one of the best props around.”Salford’s coach, Karl Harrison, claims to be so short of fit half-backs for the game at Warrington on Sunday that he is considering bringing James Lowes out of retirement. “When a good young player comes on the market you have to be interested and Danny is just such a player,” he said.Ward goes straight into Castleford’s squad for their first game back in Super League, at home to Hull on Friday night. “I’m very pleased to have got my future sorted out and I’m looking forward to a new career with Castleford,” Ward said.The Tigers coach, Terry Matterson, said that the chance to sign a Test forward had been too good to miss. Four years on, a new rink has been built in Tunbridge Wells.. Castleford have signed Danny Ward, sacked by Leeds last month, amid fears that another of their winter recruits could be otherwise engaged. The Super League’s promoted club agreed a two-year deal with the 25-year-old Great Britain prop yesterday, after hearing that Willie Manu had been convicted of assault in Sydney.

Manu has been sentenced to 200 hours of community work and Castleford hope the court will allow him to serve it in England. If not, it could be five weeks before he is able to travel, making the acquisition of Ward, an experienced Super League forward, important.
Despite his sacking for repeated disciplinary breaches at Leeds, Ward had attracted interest from Australia, another Super League club and from Hull Kingston Rovers. The sport, everyone said, stood on the brink of a breakthrough. “We’re dead.” But, thanks to a Swiss victory, Britain had what Martin described as a “second lifeline”.

After beating Germany and Sweden to the last semi-final position, victory over the defending champions, Canada, put Martin and fellow Scots Fiona MacDonald, Janice Rankin and Debbie Knox, into the final against the team that had offered the lifeline.It all came down to the last delivery. As Martin’s stone slid down the rink and sweetly displaced the Swiss marker in the centre of the house, the Scottish skip saw history in the making.Back home, curling, not even an occasional feature on newspaper back pages, was all over the front. Their performance to Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face The Music And Dance” had all the old gusto, but it also included a back somersault move that the judges deemed illegal. Their marks provoked a chorus of disapproval in the Hamar arena. After collecting his bronze medal, Dean reflected that the comeback had probably not been the greatest of ideas.

But then it is impossible to improve upon perfection.2002: SALT LAKE CITY, WOMEN’S CURLING TEAM”That’s it,” announced Britain’s thunder-faced skip, Rhona Martin, after a second defeat in qualifying to a German team that only needed to beat Switzerland to claim the last semi-final place. The judges were as enthusiastic as the crowd, awarding the British pair the first perfect scores of 6.0 in the event’s history. Middle England awarded Torvill and Dean its heart and soul.Ten years on at the Lillehammer Games, the reunited British pairing found the judges less welcoming. Having scraped a victory in the European Championships in what was their first competitive appearance in almost a decade, Torvill and Dean realised that they needed to alter radically their routine and made a number of last-minute changes, bringing in several elements they had employed in professional routines in the interim.