AS spectators we can applaud the sheer excellence of an outstanding performance, such as Brian Lara scoring 501 or Tiger Woods winning the Masters by 12 strokes, but what we really crave from our sport is the drama and excitement of a tense contest.

We didn't get it from the Monaco Grand Prix this week, nor from the Headingley Test, nor from the South Africa v England rugby union match. So we've had to rely on cricket's Schofield Report and the shake-up of the Football Association to send the blood coursing through our veins.

The FA reforms were voted through in a meeting at Wembley almost two years after the Burns Report recommended them, but at least it didn't take half as long as the building of the stadium. If it takes as long to act on the Schofield Report, which was prompted by the 5-0 drubbing in Australia, it will be almost time for another Ashes series.

This report will do nothing to solve the real problem of international cricket, which is that there are too many mismatches. England are thrashed in Australia then return home and inflict the biggest defeat the West Indies have ever suffered. Thank goodness there's a three-Test series against India to follow - it might provide a contest.

ALL THESE mismatches are not helped by the inexplicable continuing rise in the number of injuries in sport. The West Indies were deprived of their captain, Ramnaresh Sarwan, from early in the Test, having had to go into it without their most experienced and dependable batsman, Shivnarine Chanderpaul.

Meanwhile, in Bloemfontein the England rugby team were deprived of players through illness as well as injury and are struggling to field 15 fit men for this weekend's second Test.

Jonny Wilkinson will start, but will he go the distance this time or will he be forced off again after making more tackles than anyone else? England's defence coach has told the back row that they need to protect Jonny from himself by doing more of his tackling, but that has always been a primary duty of the back row so this is hardly revolutionary.

Jonny's Newcastle team-mates, Mathew Tait and Toby Flood, did their burgeoning reputations no harm, while Jamie Noon was among those laid low by a virus, to which the other North Easterner, James Simpson-Daniel, has now succumbed.

The Teessider went off the bench to score a good try last Saturday, but every time he seems to be on the verge of making his international mark something cuts him down. A few years ago it was glandular fever, which really set him back and perhaps it has left him susceptible to other ailments.

Another who rarely gets through a game is Iain Balshaw, and it is surely time to accept that his bright start in international rugby is not going to be rekindled.

As this was already a squad deprived of 30 internationals, the 58-10 thrashing was no surprise and if, as seems likely, it is repeated this weekend it will do nothing to persuade England that they can go beyond the quarter-finals in this year's World Cup.

JUST when Formula One was threatening to become mildly interesting McLaren had to go and spoil it by admitting that they ordered the man creating the interest, Lewis Hamilton, not to compete with the team's No 1, Fernando Alonso, in Monaco.

The sport became a charade in 2002, when Ferrari instructed Rubens Barrichello to slow down metres from the line to allow Michael Schumacher to win. Such team orders were outlawed, which is why McLaren have been under investigation this week.

But the worst they could expect was a slap on the wrist because their tactics were eminently sensible around the narrow, twisting streets of Monte Carlo, where overtaking is virtually impossible. It might be a sexy place to go, but if the sport is to be taken seriously Monaco should be removed from the Formula One calendar.