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Willie Mullins arrives at Punchestown after rewriting racing’s record books

Tipperary’s hurlers face major challenge to pick themselves up after hammering by Limerick, while Gerry Thornley bemoans the anti-fun police

Willie Mullins poses with racegoers wearing masks of his face at Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, on Saturday. Photograph: Steven Paston for The Jockey Club/PA Wire

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Mary Hannigan
Tue Apr 30 2024 - 11:01

Michael Murphy doesn’t recall having any “magical formula” to deal with extra time in his Donegal playing days. All he remembers was that the “fear of losing trumped the confidence to push on and seize the initiative”. But if you go in to extra time wondering “how the hell you didn’t settle it in 70 minutes”, then you’re already on the back foot. And that was the case with Tyrone on Sunday after they’d lost several leads in normal time. Michael looks back at the game and ahead to the challenges facing both counties in the championship.

Tipperary’s hurlers, Malachy Clerkin reckons, face the mother of all challenges to pick themselves up after their hammering by Limerick. “It’s hard to imagine how Sunday could have turned out worse for them,” he writes. “Far from rattling into their first game in the Munster Championship, they looked like a team playing out the string at the end of a bad year.”

Dublin’s footballers inflicted an even bigger defeat on Offaly at the weekend, but there were only 21,957 in Croke Park to see it. Ian O’Riordan talks to Paddy Small about that attendance level, the Dub recalling wistfully the days when there was a “phenomenal buzz” around Leinster championship games.

In rugby, Gerry Thornley talks to Leinster forwards coach Robin McBryde in the build-up to Saturday’s Champions Cup semi-final against Northampton, and he hears from Cork Con’s James Taylor, who is experiencing feelings of “pure elation” after that AIL victory over Terenure on Sunday. Gerry was less elated, though, by “a needlessly over-fussy approach from An Garda Síochána, along with the stewards and Aviva Stadium employees”, towards supporters attending the game. “The anti-fun police were out in force and the net effect was actually to detract from the occasion. Pathetic really.”

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Brian O’Connor, meanwhile, previews the Punchestown festival, which gets under way today - and after rewriting racing’s record books in recent weeks, “the greatest upset of the week will be if Willie Mullins doesn’t pick up the lion’s share of a €3.5 million prize money pot”. Paul Townend trails Jack Kennedy by seven winners in the race to be crowned Ireland’s champion jockey, but “in the expectation of a Mullins bonanza this week”, you wouldn’t rule him out.

Speaking of bonanzas, Shane Lowry and Rory McIlroy picked up cheques for €1.19 million after winning the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Sunday - no wonder Lowry gave his partner a bear hug. Philip Reid looks at the impact that success could have on both players’ seasons, particularly on Lowry who will now be playing in the upcoming PGA Tour signature tournaments.

TV Watch: There’s more World Championship snooker coverage through the day on BBC2, BBC Four and Eurosport, while this afternoon RTÉ 2 brings day one of the Punchestown Festival (3.30pm). And tonight RTÉ 2 & TNT Sports 1 have the first leg of the Champions League Semi-final between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid (8pm), aka Harry Kane v Jude Bellingham.