Today eyes are watching us from the sky and ground and are telling us to endure on the holy and

"Today, eyes are watching us from the sky and ground and are telling us to endure on the holy and righteous road," he said. In Belgrade, the city electoral commission which awarded victory to the Zajedno (Together) opposition alliance last week said yesterday its ruling had been quashed by the First Municipal Court.The commission chairman, Radomir Lazarevic, was enraged by the ruling. "The decision is completely against the law," he told reporters "Truth and justice are endangered. There is a legal right of the people to start a rebellion."Opposition rallies have spread to about 50 Serbian towns, but in Belgrade in recent days the number of protesters has fallen from a peak of 100,000 to a hard core of 15,000 to 20,000. Yesterday's march was the largest daytime gathering in the city for more than a month, but it was at least as religious as political in nature, since it officially marked the holiday of St Sava, the 13th-century founder of the Serbian Orthodox church.Patriarch Pavle has thrown the church's considerable authority as a symbol of the Serbian nation squarely behind the opposition. However, his motives are more complex than the desire for justice and democracy that has fuelled the protest movement.During the early period of the 1991-95 wars in the former Yugoslavia, he was as much of a Serbian nationalist as Mr Milosevic. The rift that later opened between them owed much to his view that Mr Milosevic had betrayed ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia by standing aside as they lost their lands in a conflict inspired largely by the Serbian president.Zajedno legislators yesterday took formal control of Nis, Serbia's second-largest city, where the Socialists conceded this month that they had lost the November elections.Sixteen Socialist deputies boycotted the ceremony in Nis. Zoran Zivkovic, the likely new mayor, said that five decades of Communist and Socialist rule had left the city "totally ruined".By mixing restraint with mild repression and by making concessions that seem genuine but eventually turn out to be trivial, Slobodan Milosevic appears to be calculating that he can wear out the opposition in a contest that could last months..

Hundreds of thousands of Chechens swamped polling booths yesterday for a historic election to choose their own leader and send a defiant message to Russia that they now belong to an independent nation. A wave of euphoria swept across the small Caucasus republic throughout a festive and frantic day that Chechens seem certain to remember as the moment they sealed their de facto victory in the 21-month war with Russia. Such was the multitude which descended on voting stations, many struggling in from far-flung, bombed-out villages in rickety cars and buses, that the electoral authorities last night kept the polls open for an extra two hours until 10pm.Although last year's peace accord with Moscow deferred the settlement of Chechnya's status for five years, yesterday's elections for president and parliament were seen by Chechens as evidence that the million-strong Islamic mountain republic has acquired nationhood.Taisa Karsamayali, a middle-aged woman wrapped in a fox fur against the -5C temperatures, resented being made to vote in Soviet times when the elections were rigged and the candidates were stooges But yesterday was different: "Today is like a holiday. It was pure joy, because I was voting for independence and for my own country. It was a very important day for us."She had voted for Aslan Maskhadov, the former separatist chief-of-staff who is the favourite and Moscow's choice, as he is viewed as the most moderate of the five leading candidates. But like most who have endured almost two years of Russian bombs and bullets, she said she would be happy with the outcome no matter who won, even if it was Shamil Basayev, the popular Chechen field commander, whom Russia has branded a terrorist.Ms Karsamayali, a judge, was standing in brilliant sunshine outside voting station number 41, a gutted general store in Grozny, the capital.

The store was being used for refugees from three outlying villages wrecked by Russian bombs during the war, Atchkoi, Yandi and Bamut. Within, the activity was feverish and the enthusiasm palpable.Grandmothers, middle-aged men in sheepskin hats and dapper young women queued before the curtained booths, coloured bright green, like the Chechen flag, before posting their ballots into boxes and having their right hands sprayed with indelible ink.Adam Ismaelov, 30, a former Chechen separatist fighter, was at the front. He still carried his sub-machine gun slung over his black leather jacket. Gregori Kacala and Loic van der Linden were so superior in all phases of the loose exchanges that not even a torrent of Leicester possession would have been a guarantee of progress.Kacala's very passable impersonation of the Matterhorn on legs has sent a number of leading British clubs rifling through the bottom drawer in search of a new chequebook - Cardiff have already spoken to the shipyard- sized Pole from Gdansk - and the way he turned over Richards, John Wells and Neil Back at will on Saturday more than justified the interest.And then there were the Brive backs, a thoroughbred band of bold, adventurous musketeers, their act sharpened not only by withering pace but by the confidence to use it. We weren't clever enough."Besides, there was more to the Tigers' demise than a line-out misfire. "There was plenty going on at the line-out but we didn't have the sense to slow things down, widen the gaps and give the referee the opportunity to check it out.

"I keep on getting indications that it might not be an advantageous approach."But Dwyer knows as well as anyone that one of the great arts of rugby is calculating exactly how much a referee will allow you to get away with.Duncan Hall, the second Australian on Leicester's coaching panel, readily accepted that Brive got their sums right. Grant Ross, born in New Zealand but redeveloped by the same firm that built the Arc de Triomphe, gave Leicester's kingpin ball- winner a rough ride from first minute to last and with the equally aggressive Eric Allegret reducing Matt Poole to a 6ft 6in, 19st non-entity, the Tigers' supply line was cut off at source.Seigne admitted that he had worked overtime on the line-out phase - "you need to be a post-graduate to understand all the different calls," said Richard Crespy, the fast and effective French prop - and the Brive tactics left Bob Dwyer, the Tigers coach, some way short of amused."I am constantly reminded that one of the problems with my coaching technique is that I insist on playing within the laws," he said. Add to that the fact that Austin Healey's hitherto faultless cover tackle game went AWOL - on anything like a normal day, the feisty little scrum-half would have denied both Sebastien Viars and Gerald Fabre their crucial corner-flag tries - and you are looking at one bad day at the office.Johnson's unusually docile display will not have encouraged the Lions selectors, who have pencilled him in as a main man for this summer's series in South Africa. As a result, Martin Johnson spent an entirely unproductive afternoon at the front of the line-out and Dean Richards lost more ground than he gained in the dark depths of the driving mauls.You had to see it to believe it. But the manner of their victory was something else again.Intelligently primed by their coaches, Laurent Seigne and Pierre Montlaur, they took on the Tigers in their most obvious areas of strength and expertise and rendered them impotent. How else to explain a Heineken European Cup final upset of such staggering proportions? It was no particular surprise that Brive, dark horses from the outset of the competition in October, should have left Cardiff Arms Park with the silverware, nor especially startling that the winning margin was so comprehensive. When French sides blow as hot as Alain Penaud's multi-faceted outfit did on Saturday, a 28-9 hiding is almost a let-off for the opposition. Now there is a 29th; known as the Tigers' Principle, it dictates that class players produce their worst performances in unison to ensure maximum embarrassment.

According to the rulebook, there are 28 laws governing the game of Rugby Union - about 27 too many in the view of most self-respecting prop forwards. The Czech Republic, beating Spain 7-5 in the final, won their first ever European title in any competition. Tony White, the former international umpire and administrator nominated to lead the Men and Women's associations when they become the new English Hockey Association in June, died on Saturday in hospital at the age of 64 following a heart attack.. Denise Marston-Smith scored all five goals for England in their 5-3 win against Belarus to take the bronze medal in the European Under-21 Indoor championship in Ceske Budejovice, the Czech Republic, yesterday after they had disappointingly been beaten 5-2 by Spain in their semi-final on Saturday. Reading overcame spirited opposition from relegation-doomed Havant to win 5-3 and go into second place.