A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Thorn and Wallace added to Heineken Cup tickets
RUGBY: Brad Thorn and David Wallace are amongst the players who have been registered for the Heineken Cup knock-out stages, writes Gerry Thornley.
Each of the quarter-finalists is permitted to nominate up to three supplementary players, and aside from Thorn, Leinster have added lock Mark Flanagan and hooker Tom Sexton, while in addition to Wallace, Munster have added prop Peter Borlase and young winger Luke O’Dea.
Ulster’s squad has been supplemented by the addition of winger Chris Cochrane and lock Iain Henderson, who was a regular starter throughout Ireland’s Under-21 Six Nations campaign.
Meanwhile, Ulster have confirmed that backrow forward Pedrie Wannenburg will leave the club at the end of this season.
Pedrie, who has represented the Springboks on 20 occasions, joined Ulster ahead of the start of 2010-11 from the Blue Bulls franchise in South Africa.
The opportunity to bring him to Belfast arose when Ulster’s deal with Xavier Rush (who was to leave Cardiff Blues for Ulster) fell through.
In his first season at the club Pedrie featured in 29 out of 30 competitive games, amassing more minutes on the pitch than any other player that season.
Injuries this season, picked up away to Edinburgh in January and at home to the same opposition in March, have led him to miss a handful of recent games.
Button confident going to Malaysia
MOTOR SPORT: McLaren's Jenson Button is quietly confident of backing up last week's season-opening victory despite expecting a tougher challenge from his Formula One rivals on the Sepang circuit in Malaysia on Sunday.
The 2009 world champion overtook team-mate and fellow Briton Lewis Hamilton on the dash to the first turn in Melbourne and cruised to victory ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel, who benefited from a late safety car to pass the other McLaren and claim second place.
"We have a good feeling at the moment, there's a lot of confidence in the team but we also know there are a lot of other quick cars," Button said.
"Red Bull were strong in the race and some of the others didn't put it together over the weekend, so I expect it to be more competitive than Melbourne.
"We have a really good car so a one-two is not out of the question if everything goes well."
Thomond to host Australia clash
RUGBY LEAGUE:Thomond Park in Limerick is to host Ireland's plum tie of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup against Australia.
Belfast and Dublin hosted games during the 2000 World Cup and tournament organisers described the latest announcement as an "exciting opportunity" for the development of the game in Ireland" and are convinced the tie, to be staged sometime in November 2013, will be a resounding success.
Richard Lewis, chairman of the tournament organisers, said: "It's not a gamble to stage a World Cup game in Ireland. The Rugby League World Cup is a major sporting occasion so the decision was not made purely on finances, or on specific clubs or individuals, we selected towns getting wholly behind the World Cup.
Thomond Park is among 19 different venues that will be used during the tournament that kicks-off with a double-header at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on October 26th, 2013.
England make it two wins from two
CRICKET: England made it two wins from two in Sri Lanka with an impressive fourth-innings chase only marred by concerns over Ravi Bopara's fitness and Ian Bell's form.
The tourists successfully reeled in a target of 359 in two sessions against a Development XI in Colombo, despite leaving first-innings centurions Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott in the pavilion in a four-wicket win.
Four other batsmen hit half-centuries, with Kevin Pietersen (52), Bopara (66), Matt Prior (84) and Samit Patel (72) all making valuable contributions. The off-form Bell, who has had a torrid 2012, made just 11 and was conspicuous by his failure.
But England's real concern ahead of Monday's first Test is the number six spot - and the news that a side strain for Bopara is likely to rule him out of bowling in the Test series.
Ireland keep lead
GOLF: The Irish quartet continues to lead the way going into today's third round of the European Nations Cup while Reeve Whitson remains the top golfer in Spain.
The former Irish Strokeplay champion followed up Tuesday's 68 with a 74 yesterday, keeping him first in the individual standings, one shot clear of Ballymena's Dermot McElroy, who is tied for second.
Niall Gorey carded a 76 as Ireland extended their advantage over the other 16 countries taking part with two days of competition remaining.
Martin in fourth
CYCLING: Ireland's Daniel Martin of the Garmin team moved up two places to fourth in the overall standings after yesterday's fourth stage of the Volta a Catalunya.
Martin finished the race from Tremp to Asco La vostra energia in 17th position, on the same time as Rigoberto Uran of Team Sky, who edged out Denis Menchov (Katusha) and Sylwester Szmyd (Liquigas) in a sprint at the end of the 199km stage.
Nicolas Roche finished 44 seconds behind the leaders in 31st position, and is in 45th place overall.
