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Malachy Clerkin: Stephen Kenny’s bad run of luck looks set to continue against France

A Euro qualifier, an Irish Open, a World Cup opener and a column on gun violence in American high school football, all in your Irish Times Sport this morning.

Ireland manager Stephen Kenny. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

Malachy Clerkin's face
Malachy Clerkin
Thu Sep 7 2023 - 10:45

Big stories everywhere you look on the Irish sports scene today. Your morning briefing is coming to you from The K Club in Kildare, where the Irish Open is under way. Rory McIlroy is the big draw, naturally enough – here’s a piece from yesterday’s pro-am day on the particular kind of fame he brings and his relationship with Irish fans.

Philip Reid’s tournament preview lays out what we can expect over the coming four days and includes a fairly spiky dispatch from Adrian Meronk’s press conference yesterday where he described his mood around not getting picked for the Ryder Cup team as going from “shock to sadness to anger ... now, I’m trying to turn it into motivation”.

Elsewhere, it’s a huge night – in a seemingly endless string of huge nights – for Stephen Kenny in Paris. Ireland face a huge task against France in their Euro qualifier and Gavin Cummiskey reports from the city of lights for us. Ken Early is there too, and given everything that has gone wrong in the build-up, the mood is predictably downbeat. “The Germans would have come up with a word for what happens to Stephen Kenny by now. The gods of football must have been falling around the place laughing as they came up with this latest one.”

On the Rugby World Cup front, Rory Fleming has a story today about the off-putting costs involved in going over to watch Ireland during the tournament. “The hosting of the majority of games in Paris seems poorly thought out,” says Connacht supporter Sean Maughan. “It is already an expensive city at the best of times, but to have thousands of fans from so many countries heading to the one city rather than properly spreading games out around France wasn’t well planned at all.”

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Meanwhile, Gerry Thornley’s latest piece from the Ireland camp predicts a strong team being named by Andy Farrell later today for the opener against Romania on Saturday. “To some degree, it’s a case of needs must in giving both Johnny Sexton and Rónan Kelleher game time after they missed Ireland’s three warm-up games, while Farrell and co have had their hand forced by the non-availability of Dan Sheehan, Jack Conan and David Kilcoyne.”

In Gaelic games, Gordon Manning has an appreciation of the career of Seamus Callanan, Tipperary’s all-time leading goalscorer who announced his retirement from intercounty hurling yesterday. “I know he got Hurler of the Year in 2019,” says Nicky English, “but he probably should have got it in 2016 as well, he should have been Hurler of the Year twice, not many players achieve that but that is the realm he occupies.”

In a week where Irish sportspeople are involved in so many big events on the international stage, Ciarán Murphy’s column returns to the subject of the split season in the GAA. “How could the GAA ever hope to compete with such international riches?” Murphy asks. “The key in such situations, when it seems like you’re fighting a losing battle, is to pick an entirely different battle altogether.”

Finally, in a harrowing column on a spate of shootings at high school football games across America, Dave Hannigan details the entirely depressing reality of how the gun culture in the US has infiltrated what should be the most innocent of joys. “Equal parts endearing ritual and cherished custom,” Hannigan writes, “it has now become synonymous with the settling of beefs and the depressingly familiar thwack of chambers being emptied.”

On Telly: Irish Open golf, live on RTÉ2 and Sky Sports Golf, 1.00pm