Rugby
The big news this morning is the TV3 takeover of Six Nations rights with RTÉ set to lose out on the tournament from 2018 onwards. After broadcasting every World Cup match live, TV3 have expanded and will show all Six Nations games for a period of four years at a cost of €22 million.
The news comes as another major loss to RTÉ as it adds to their growing list of live sports which they have lost the broadcast rights to.
John Feehan, CEO of Six Nations Rugby said: “We are delighted to be working with TV3 on developing the interest in the Championship and to ultimately grow this wonderful competition in Ireland. TV3’s coverage of Rugby World Cup was very successful and we believe that they will inject new and exciting ideas in the broadcasting of the Six Nations Championship.
Writing about the news in today's newspaper and on the website, Mary Hannigan says that the high volume of ad breaks on TV3 will infuriate the purists and have people pining for RTÉ.
“There were plenty, though, who regarded the news as ungodly, the social media machine detonating, a Rowan Copeland, for one, responding thusly: “May God have mercy on us all.””
Soccer
The Ireland team will board their flight to Bosnia today with Martin O'Neill in somewhat of a conundrum as to his striking options. Just three strikers are fit for tomorrow's Euro 2016 play-off first leg after Shane Long was ruled out yesterday. Robbie Keane, Daryl Murphy and Kevin Doyle provide Ireland's striking clout while John O'Shea, Glenn Whelan, Jonathan Walters (suspensions) and Rob Elliot (injury) are all out.
Despite struggling in the green jersey recently Robbie Keane has insisted that he still has much to offer to the team. The 35-year-old doesn't believe he has anything to prove, having showed himself to be Ireland's best ever striker time and time again.
Emmet Malone has been examining Ireland's opponents as they look to further build on recent success having only emerged from the shadow of the Balkan War 20 years ago.
“This was Sarajevo in the early nineties; the city and time in which former Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko grew up. On a bad day more than 1,000 rounds of one type or another could rain down upon the city from the surrounding forces. Death, or the threat or it, would have been a daily reality for the young boy whose living conditions became ever more cramped as buildings were destroyed and relatives moved in together.”
GAA
Dublin will play a championship game away from Croke Park for the first time in 10 years when they take on Wicklow or Laois in Nolan Park next July.
The Leinster Championship quarter-final will take place on June 4th and will be the first provincial championship game the Dubs have played outside Croke Park since they travelled to Longford in 2006.
Onto international rules and, after selecting his 23-man panel to take on Australia in this month's match, Joe Kernan has spoken of how difficult it was to narrow the panel down, given the quality in it.
Despite not playing in any of the trial games Diarmuid Connolly has been included in the panel with Kernan pointing to his immense quality as being too hard to turn down.
“He (Connolly) is one of the best players in the country, and was for two or three years, and hasn’t fallen below that. So for us to get someone like him, intelligent, good kicker, good passer of the ball, he’s everything that we want our team to be. He’s intelligent, he knows where to go, and he can turn and kick a ball 40 yards without looking. Those qualities are hard to come by, and for someone to run the half-forward line for us he’s ideal.”
The irony of the international rules is that Connolly will line up alongside Lee Keegan, only shortly after the hottest controversy of this year’s championship.
But Keegan is adamant that the two factors are totally separate and that both players will work together to ensure an Ireland win.
Athletics
As the Wada investigation into Russian doping continues to rumble on, the country's sports minister has come out on the offensive.
Vitaly Mutko says that if tests at the 2012 London Olympics had failed to catch cheats “then your system is zero and even worse than ours”.
Mutko, also head of the 2018 World Cup organising committee, criticised Greg Dyke, the English Football Association chairman, for saying his position on the Fifa executive committee could come into question as a result of the revelations.
Golf
With the final stage of the European Tour's qualifying school starting on Saturday, tour caddie Colin Byrne writes about how the harsh realities are beginning to bit for some of the Irish players.
From the five Irish players who represented Great Britain and Ireland at the Walker Cup, only Paul Dunne has made it to the final stage of qualifying at PGA Catalunya.
He’s joined by six fellow Irish players, with Peter Lawrie, Damien McGrane and Simon Thornton fighting to regain their full playing rights.
At the BMW Masters in Shanghai Sergio Garcia leads the way on eight under par with Shane Lowry six shots back at two under and Paul McGinley a further stroke behind after a 71.
America at Large
In his column from stateside this week Dave Hannigan writes about the intriguing case of the Washington Redskins.
They are just one of the 2000 sports teams around America whose names are offensive to Native Americans.
US President Barack Obama has agreed a deal with Adidas which will see the sports giant foot the bill to change the names of each of the teams.
However, Washington are not too happy about the arrangement.
“What’s all the stink over the Redskin name?” asked Mike Ditka, legendary coach of the Super Bowl-winning Chicago Bears.
“We’re going to let the liberals of the world run this world, It was said out of reverence, out of pride to the American Indian. Even though it was called a Redskin, what are you going to call them, a Proudskin?”
What to watch out for
Golf: Graeme McDowell tees it up at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba on the PGA Tour. Sky Sports 4 from 6pm. In Shanghai, coverage of the second round of the BMW Masters gets begins at 3am Friday morning on Sky Sports 4.
Rugby: Harlequins and Montpellier get the 2016 Challenge Cup underway. Sky Sports 2 from 7pm.
Soccer: The first of the Euro 2016 play-offs gets underway when Norway take on Hungary in Oslo. Sky Sports 3 from 7.40pm.
