World Rugby Classic.

As many as 10 top English players have been denied permission by their clubs to take part in the annual international tournament here, leaving the traditionally strong British Isles squad with a decidedly Celtic flavour.

As a result, the England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales mix known previously as the Classic Barbarians has a new name: Lions.

While there is traditionally no league rugby in November, English professional players now under contract to their clubs are being ordered to stay home and take part in coaching sessions, fitness programmes and other activities.

"It's not a big blow,'' chief organiser John Kane said yesterday. "One of the reasons we added the Lions is because we recognised that this could present a difficulty. But we didn't recognise the difficulty would be to this extent.'' Among the players affected are notables such as Jonathan Davies, Mark Ring, Paul Turner, Dewi Morris, Adrian Hadley, Arthur Emyr and Rory Underwood.

Their absence will leave only about three English players on the Lions side hoping to at least match the performance of last year's Barbarians, 10-5 losers to New Zealand in the final.

"It's a strange sort of situation,'' said Kane, who said he was already working on correcting the dilemma for next year.

But even without the English, nearly 200 other former international players, representing a total of more than 1,500 caps for their countries, will converge on the Island for the six-day tournament beginning on November 9.

In addition to the Lions and New Zealand, other teams taking part are South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, United States, Canada and a host team drawn primarily from the national squad that recently took part in several World Cup qualifying matches.

New Zealand have added former All Black captain Buck Shelford to their squad, which also features veterans Andy Haden (41 caps), Steve McDowell (46), Terry Wright (30), Craig Green (20) and Kieran Crowley (19).

Classic Week includes a total of 11 games and innumerable social events. The tournament will be televised on ESPN International in over 150 countries in December.