That Six Nations table makes for highly pleasant viewing after the weekend’s games, Ireland having helped themselves to another maximum five-point haul in Murrayfield. There is, as Gerry Thornley cautions in his match report, “still plenty of road to travel”, but the dream of an unprecedented three titles in a row is alive and kicking.
Gerry heard from Simon Easterby and Caelan Doris after the match, the coach and captain content with their day’s work, and he also had a word with Sam Prendergast who had just played his first international away from home. He passed the test “in cruise control”.
Naturally, both Prendergast and Andrew Porter fared well in Johnny Watterson’s player ratings, John O’Sullivan analysing the latter’s 69 minutes on the pitch which were jammed with “standout moments”.
Not that it was it a perfect display from Ireland, if such a thing can even exist, John pointing to their first-half profligacy, when they passed up on 14-21 points. And among the “Five things we learned” from this round of matches was, as Johnny points out, Ireland’s tendency to produce “defensive lapses” and give up late tries.
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In Gaelic games, Tipperary produced no end of defensive lapses on their way to conceding 30 points to Limerick, Gordon Manning rounding up the hurling weekend that saw reigning league and All-Ireland champions Clare put to the sword by Galway, Kilkenny see off the challenge of Wexford, and Davy Fitzgerald left severely frustrated by Antrim’s “boom or bust hurling” in their 15-point hammering by Offaly.
So far, then, Antrim’s appointment of an “outside coach” hasn’t gone entirely smoothly, but it’s a trend that’s running ever deeper in the club game too. “Every elite club,” writes Denis Walsh, “and many others with notions about themselves, have become infatuated with the practices of intercounty teams and copycat set-ups.”
In soccer, Ken Early casts his eye over the relationship between Donald Trump and Fifa president Gianni Infantino, or “Johnny” as Trump calls him, Infantino “relentlessly sucking up to the president since he first came to office in 2017”. He was even rewarded with an invite to Trump’s second inauguration.
And on Sunday, Trump became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl. He only stayed for the first half, though, so he missed the Philadelphia Eagles ending Kansas City Chiefs’s hopes of a third consecutive title.
Meanwhile in horse racing, Brian O’Connor reports on trainer Harry Rogers’ legal challenge against what he claims was a false positive drugs test on one of his horses in 2017. The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board says it will be “defending the case fully”.
TV Watch: If you missed the weekend’s GAA and rugby action, TG4 and RTÉ 2 have you sorted. TG4 have the GAA highlights (8pm), and at the same time RTÉ 2’s Against the Head looks back at Saturday and Sunday’s Six Nations games.
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