static vars or how to write dirty tags

Now I can create a multirow table-head from an existing tree ... but
as xml is not as flexible as html is, i can't create row endings (</tr>)
where I need them ...

The xml-file:
<chart>
 <column>
 <name>foo</name>
     <column>
     <name>bar</name>
     </column>
 </column>
</chart>

<xsl:template match="chart">
   <table><tr>
   <xsl:apply-templates select="descendant::column">
     <xsl:sort select="count(ancestor::column)"/>
   </xsl:apply-templates>
 </tr></table>

<xsl:template match="column">
   <xsl:variable name="colspan" select="count(.//column[not(column)])"/>
   <td colspan="{$colspan}"><xsl:value-of select="name"/></td>
   <xsl:if test="count(following-sibling::column) = 0">
     </tr><tr>  <!-- :-) well, thats what I want to do ... -->
   </xsl:if>
 </xsl:template>

Is there a solution like this in xsl ?
My next idea was <eval>&lt;/tr&gt;</eval> but eval does not work ...!?

--
Ingo Friepoertner
friepoertner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx