It most certainly wouldn’t have felt like a blessing in disguise six weeks ago when he tore a ligament in his foot in the warm-up win over England, at that point Dan Sheehan fearing for his World Cup. But his ensuing lay-off allowed time for shoulder and hip “niggles” to heal, the hooker now feeling “probably the fittest and in the best condition I have been in in a long time”.
Having looked hale and hearty when he played the last half-hour against South Africa, Gerry Thornley has a hunch that Sheehan will be restored as the starting hooker against Scotland on Saturday. Not that Sheehan will read Gerry’s thoughts on the matter. “I don’t read any sports media really. I was just like that as a kid, I wasn’t really interested in ... in your job.” Players have been sent home from the World Cup for less.
But, despite the affront, Gerry soldiered on, dropping into Mike Catt’s meeting with the media after the squad’s morning training session at their base in Tours. How concerned is the attack coach about the levels of favouritism and expectation on Ireland ahead of Saturday’s “glorified last-16 knock-out tie”? Not a bit. The players are, he insisted, comfortable with the high hopes around them.
Maintaining that theme, Gordon D’Arcy notes that “Ireland have been able to deal with expectation for quite a while now”, but that victory over South Africa, he says, won’t mean “diddly squat if they don’t bring the same focus and application to Saturday’s game” against a Scotland side that have been “building quietly and confidently over the last 12 months”.
Your complete guide to all the festive sporting action including TV details
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Back home, Seán Moran suggests that last Saturday’s GAA special congress was “comparable to the fastest root canal”, 11 motions dealt with in the space of an hour. But that doesn’t mean that the proceedings were “disposable”, Seán arguing that significant work was done, not least on the “gender balance proposal” front.
Also in Gaelic games, Gordon Manning writes about Ger Brennan’s appointment as Louth manager, a fortnight after “Mickey Harte pushed the eject button”. From Dublin’s class of 2011, Brennan is “the first to bolt for the bainisteoir’s bib”, his task now to build on Harte’s work with the Wee County.
And in soccer, there’s no end of expletives in the transcript of the VAR audio from Luis Díaz’s wrongly disallowed goal for Liverpool at Spurs at the weekend, all of them prompted by the officials’ realisation that the process had gone horribly wrong.
Speaking of things going wrong: Manchester United’s season is going from “bad to worse”, Erik ten Hag’s side offering “a masterclass in how not to defend” against Galatasaray on Tuesday night. If he has any sense, ten Hag will follow Dan Sheehan’s lead and not read any sports media. At least for today.
TV watch: There’s lots more Champions League fare to feast on tonight, Virgin Media Two showing Newcastle v Paris Saint-Germain, while across their range of channels TNT Sports will have Celtic v Lazio, Borussia Dortmund v AC Milan, Leipzig v Manchester City and Porto v Barcelona (all 8.0 kick-offs).
