And breathe. True, as Gerry Thornley puts it in his match report, it was “a wild, fluctuating, rollercoaster of a game”, but a “bench-fuelled rally” helped Ireland get the job done against Italy. A relieved Andy Farrell saluted his team’s “resilience”, while conceding that there’s a bit of tidying up to be done before they take on England in Twickenham next Saturday.
The eternal debate: will Sam Prendergast or Jack Crowley start that game? Whatever decision he makes, Farrell has had his fill of the “keyboard warriors” who have targeted both young outhalves over the past year or two.
A considerably happier story was that of Edwin Edogbo’s debut, Gerry talking to the Munster man after the game, while John O’Sullivan doffs his cap to the impact Crowley had when he came on. He has praise too, in his “Five things we learned from this Six Nations weekend”, for James Ryan’s “excellent hard-nosed display”, and he salutes Stuart McCloskey for his performance. The Ulster man was one of four Irish players to receive a seven in Johnny Watterson’s ratings ... but there was a sprinkling of fives.
In the weekend’s other games, Scotland stunned England at Murrayfield while an imperious France helped themselves to an eight-try romp over Wales in Cardiff. Also in rugby comes the grim news that Joey Carbery has suffered a season-ending ACL injury in training with Bordeaux Bègles, but it is not expected to affect his impending return to Leinster next summer.
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In Gaelic games, Donegal made it three wins out of three in the National League with a comfortable eight-point defeat of Mayo in Letterkenny, Seán Moran hearing from the managers after the game, while Kerry gave up a 12-point lead in Tralee, Galway staging the mother of all comebacks to draw the game.
Malachy Clerkin was in Croke Park to see Dublin finally get off the mark in division one, and at Dr Hyde Park, Roscommon held off a big Armagh fightback to prevail. Just click here for all the reports from the weekend’s games.
In football, in light of Ireland being drawn in the same Nations League group as Israel, Ken Early asks: “Why was Russia banned from football, and Israel not?” He also looks at the likely consequences if Ireland refused to fulfil those fixtures. And in his Green Shoots column, Conor McEvoy had news of yet another memorable weekend for Troy Parrott – and a good one too for Owen Elding.
Ian O’Riordan has news from the Winter Olympics where 17-year-old Anabelle Zurbay, the youngest member of Team Ireland, made her debut in the giant slalom on Sunday, and he also reports on an impressive return to the track for Rhasidat Adeleke.
In racing, Brian O’Connor has more on the controversy surrounding jockey Philip Byrnes being unseated in a race in Wexford last May, while in his Tipping Point column, Denis Walsh looks at Rachael Blackmore’s legacy. Did her achievements “mask a more mundane reality for every other woman in the weighing room”?
TV Watch: We’re into the final week of the Winter Olympics, live coverage continuing on BBC1, BBC2 and TNT Sports through the day until 10.30 tonight. And at 8.0 this evening, RTÉ2’s Against the Head looks back at the rugby weekend, while TG4 does the same for the GAA action.
