A glance at the Six Nations table after the opening games of this year’s championship and you’d have to conclude that it has a decidedly healthy look to it from an Irish point of view. But you know yourself, Andy Farrell tends not to lose the run of himself. “Two from two. It’s a decent start. It gets tougher from here on in,” he said after Sunday’s 36-0 win over Italy, the first time since 1987 that Ireland restricted an opposing team to zero points in the championship. And, as Gerry Thornley points out in his match report, it was the first time in 37 meetings with Italy that Ireland kept them scoreless. Beyond decent. As were several of the individual performances, as John O’Sullivan’s player ratings confirm.
Among those to catch John’s eye were Jack Crowley and Stuart McCloskey, while another star of the show was the Irish lineout - 13 earned, 13 won, just like against France, as Johnny Watterson points out in his ‘Five things we learned from the second weekend of Six Nations action’ round-up. Johnny also reflects on Crowley’s afternoon.
And in his round-up of the weekend’s hurling action, Malachy Clerkin notes that the plentiful drama at least kept “the blood flowing through the bundled-up spectators in the stands” on “another perishing Sunday across the country”. Malachy, still defrosting, was in Semple Stadium to see Gearóid O’Connor warm the cockles of Tipperary hearts with a 1-13 haul in their win over Galway, while Denis Walsh was in Páirc Uí Chaoimh to witness an “unhinged” contest between Cork and Kilkenny. And Seán Moran was among the crowd at the re-opened Walsh Park to see Clare make it two league wins out of two against Waterford.
Meanwhile, in his Tipping Point column, Denis argues that the GAA’s amateurism is a thing of the past, even if “the rhetoric continues”. “Pining for what has been lost won’t bring it back. It’s gone,” he writes.
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Jurgen Klopp will, of course, be gone from Liverpool at the end of the season and Ken Early reckons that choosing Xabi Alonso as his successor is “a no-brainer”. “Is it a risk to entrust the team to a coach with fewer than two seasons of experience at the top level? It might be, but when the task is to replace Jurgen Klopp, all the options are risky.”
This weather, there appears to be little risk in backing Willie Mullins’ horses. As Brian O’Connor tells us, the trainer “is rated as an even-money shot by one firm to outscore Britain at next month’s Cheltenham Festival”.
TV Watch: If you opted for some sleep last night and skipped the Super Bowl, you can watch an entire re-run of the game on Sky Sports NFL this evening (8.0). TG4 has highlights of the weekend’s hurling action (8.0), while RTE2′s Against the Head looks back at the second round of games in the Six Nations. And also at 8.0, Crystal Palace host Chelsea in the Premier League (Sky Sports).
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