stage next year's tournament at National Sports Club.

With the Millennium tournament just out of the way, thoughts move to 2001.

But it is not definite that the Classic will be held at the Devonshire venue, which was recently purchased by Montessori Academy for $3.5 million.

The school wants to tranform Nationals into a campus for students and this month permission was granted to change the use of the building there from recreational to institutional.

Classic president John Kane said he expected to have discussions with the new owners in the coming months.

Asked whether he thought the Classic would remain at Nationals, he said: "That is something we are looking at and will discuss with the new owners in January. I don't know that we will be there or not, but we have options.'' Without revealing those alternative venues, Kane said ideally he wanted the event to stay put.

"We would like to stay at Nationals, we are comfortable there. We have a situation there where people are comfortable with the place, it's a nice ground,'' he said.

"I have said to a number of people in Bermuda there are not many areas like that and to close it down, I don't mean this rudely, for a school and then have it lying idle on a weekend depriving some of the sports of facilities I just think wouldn't be right.'' Kane said he didn't expect to have a definitive answer until the New Year.

"I would imagine by January Montessori will have the whole purchase arrangements finalised. I don't think any money has changed hands yet.'' "Once it's finalised we can sit down seriously with them and see whether they can accomodate us next year or not. But we are hopeful,'' he said.

Reflecting on this year's event which saw South Africa take the Classic title and Canada the Plate, Kane said: "It seemed to be better -- a bigger success.

I think there seemed to be a lot more people there.

"Obviously the visiting clubs added to it along with the visiting ladies teams and we had a lot more corporate hospitality, so you get a general feeling that everything was up.'' Asked whether it had been a financial success Kane said: "We have been running at a deficit for a number of years. We made money last year and hopefully we'll have made some money this year to help reduce that deficit.'' While Kane didn't envisage any drastic changes next year, he said he hoped to see a return to kicking penalties -- largely neglected this year.

"One of the aspects that came out of it is the non-kicking which has backfired to a certain extent,'' he said.

"I had a good chat with Andy Haden (All Blacks captain) on Friday night about that and I think I've convinced him that they should not in fact do that, they should actually kick their penalties, because otherwise it causes all sorts of problems down the way -- people continue to infringe, then the forwards get too heavily involved and you don't see any back play. "The fact they don't take the penalty kicks is a voluntary thing -- it's not part of the rules. It is propagated by the fact that it is called `the spirit of the Classic' but that was never the intention of it. "The All Blacks never kicked their penalties because they were running in so many tries, now they are starting to lose, they are getting bogged down, getting involved in a few heated discussions between the sides and the play is not as adventurous as we would like.'' For the first time this year a women's international became part of the tournament -- England and the USA drawing 10-all on the night of the final.

"I think a lot of people who saw it thought it was very good rugby. It was what I would call a pure sort of rugby -- get the ball, get it down the lines and run,'' he said.

Kane said he didn't rule out an expansion of the ladies' involvement in 2001.

As for the men, Kane said he would be putting in a few calls Down Under.

"We are looking at Australia. to see if they are interested in coming back and then we will have to see how we deal with which team we drop out,'' he said.