Time’s flyin’. We’re just a fortnight and a bit away from the start of Ireland’s Six Nations campaign, which they open against England in Dublin. While Simon Easterby doesn’t have an entirely clean bill of health when choosing his squad for the challenge, one he announces this afternoon, he’s not far off. Tadhg Furlong and Ciarán Frawley returned from injury at the weekend and Dan Sheehan, Peter O’Mahony, James Lowe and Hugo Keenan are all back in training. Gerry Thornley looks at the likely shape of Easterby’s selection.
One name that will most certainly be on the list will be that of Sam Prendergast, Gerry hearing Ronan O’Gara sing the 21-year-old’s praises after his performance for Leinster against La Rochelle at the weekend. “He is an impressive young player, that’s for certain,” he said, “he has a huge future.”
And Gerry also heard from James Ryan about the impact of Jacques Nienaber on this Leinster side, his “redesigned defence” central to their 16-14 success on Sunday, Ryan reckoning it’s a game they might have lost a couple of years ago.
In his Whistleblower column, Owen Doyle laments the “significant loss to elite rugby refereeing” of Chris Busby after news that he is set to retire from officiating, with the “Mack Hansen issue”, Owen suspects, playing a large part in his decision. The Connacht man’s six-match ban, with three set aside, for his criticism of Busby was “a light sentence” – if the IRFU stepped in and added a match or two on to that suspension, they would “restore faith in rugby’s values”.
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In Gaelic games, Seán Moran talks to Davy Fitzgerald about the latest chapter in his career, one that has him on the road for a good chunk of the week – it’s a round trip of about 800km from his home to Antrim whose hurlers he now manages.
Philip Reid, meanwhile, looks ahead to Rory McIlroy’s quest for a third consecutive win in the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, while in racing Brian O’Connor runs his eye over Energumene’s hopes of making it third time lucky in Saturday’s Grade One Clarence House Chase at Ascot.
TV Watch: There’s continuing coverage of the Australian Tennis Open on Eurosport through the day, and this evening there are four Premier League games to choose from on TNT Sports – Brentford v Manchester City, Chelsea v Bournemouth and West Ham v Fulham, which all kick off at 7.30, and the pick of the bunch, Nottingham Forest v Liverpool (8.0).
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