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Mary Hannigan: Vera Pauw makes some tough calls as World Cup squad is announced

Robbie ‘the good boy of Irish football’ Keane; Men’s Sevens rugby team qualify for the Olympics

Ireland head coach Vera Pauw ahead of the international friendly match at the Tallaght Stadium, Dublin. Photograph: Lorraine O'Sullivan/PA Wire

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Wed Jun 28 2023 - 10:26

Good morning,

It’s World Cup squad-announcement day, Vera Pauw has named the 23 players who will leave for Australia next week – and the unfortunate ones who will remain at home. Gavin Cummiskey takes us through the manager’s options.

And Gavin also listened in on Robbie Keane’s unveiling as manager of Maccabi Tel Aviv, with Jerusalem-based Mark Weiss telling us about Israel’s flagship sports programme opening its bulletin on Monday by doing some Keane-clarifying: Maccabi’s new gaffer was, they said, not Roy, “the bad boy of Irish football”, but Robbie, “the good boy of Irish football”. Poor Roy.

The good boys of Irish rugby, meanwhile, have qualified for the Olympics, the Sevens team beating Team GB in the European Games final in Krakow on Monday. And three more of our boxers – Daina Moorehouse, Michaela Walsh, and Aoife O’Rourke – moved a step closer to achieving the same feat. We’re going to need a fleet of planes to take the Irish team to Paris next year.

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In Gaelic games, Darragh Ó Sé tells us that “the general mood around Kerry is one of trepidation” after they were drawn against Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarter-finals, the mood possibly similar in Mayo and Dublin after they were paired with each other. There is a perception that for Mayo to prevail, writes Seán Moran, “they need to go a bit feral, their naked torsos stained with woad while waving hatchets to get the best out of themselves”. It’s an image that will never leave us.

Diarmuid Connolly and Lee Keegan went a bit feral themselves when they squared up in many a Dublin v Mayo epic in bygone days, Gordon Manning hearing from the pair when they met up on Tuesday. “Their on-field clashes were wild and ferocious,” he writes, “a form of mortal combat that occasionally involved a size five football.”

In cricket, Nathan Johns reflects on Ireland’s “disastrous qualifying campaign for the ODI World Cup”, concluding that the return to Test cricket proved to be an ill-judged distraction for the players.

And in horse racing, Brian O’Connor talks to Jessica Harrington ahead of Sunday’s Irish Derby when she will bid to become the first woman to train a winner in the race. Is she up for the challenge? “You don’t go into those races thinking, ‘I’ll be grand being second.” That’s a yes.

Telly watch: It’s day one of the second test in The Ashes, England rather eager to level the series after losing the opener at Edgbaston. Sky Sports Cricket has coverage from Lords from 10am. And later in the day, the Irish women’s team take on the West Indies in the second of their three match one day international series, their hosts winning the first by 58 runs on Monday (BT Sport 1 from 2.45).

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