We’re a year out from the World Cup and for Ireland to be “genuine contenders” going in to the tournament, they need to build “momentum and belief” - and that mission starts tomorrow when they play Argentina in the Nations Championship at the Aviva Stadium. Gerry Thornley takes us through the team Andy Farrell has selected for the challenge and hears from the head coach.
Ultimately, writes Matt Williams, Farrell has “the impossible task of developing four quality Irish players in every position” - and providing the game-time for the pretenders to prove themselves. The likes of Ryan Baird, Sean Jansen, Robert Baloucoune and Sam Prendergast “are part of a cohort who have yet to show they can step up into the world-class category”, so Farrell now needs to find out if they are “the real deal”.
Jansen is hell-bent on proving he is precisely that, Michael Scully talking to the Connacht forward who starts tomorrow having made his debut back in July.
John O’Sullivan, meanwhile, dropped in on Felipe Contepomi’s chat with the media on Tuesday, Argentina’s head coach back on familiar territory after that happy spell with Leinster. He’ll be happier still if he can lead his nation to its first ever win over Ireland in Dublin.
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Incidentally, rugby fans, don’t be buying tickets from unauthorised websites for the upcoming internationals and the Six Nations. As our Consumer Affairs man Conor Pope reveals, there’s a reasonable chance that you’ll be purchasing “bogus” tickets.
In football, Gavin Cummiskey looks at Heimir Hallgrímsson’s options ahead of him naming his squad today for the Nations League games against Austria and Kosovo. And in the build-up to Sunday’s FAI Cup final between Derry City and Waterford, Gavin Cooney talks to the latter’s Conan Noonan about the club’s miraculous second half of the season.
In golf, Philip Reid hears from Rory McIlroy ahead of his Harry Vardon Trophy-pursuing appearance at the Abu Dhabi Aldar Championship, which got under way this morning. And McIlroy had his say - again - on LIV matters, his chief hope that golf can reset itself after a spell when the LIV crew turned the game in to “an arms race”.
In Gaelic games, Gordon Manning talks to Cora Staunton about the ongoing battle for integration, the former Mayo star heartened by the progress the women’s game has made through the years, but frustrated by the slow pace of it all.
And in his America At Large column, Dave Hannigan suggests that it’s unwise to mess with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. They’ve just issued a cease-and-desist letter to My Chemical Romance whose recent show at the Hollywood Bowl featured a squadron of demented cheerleaders brandishing machine guns, clad in skin-tight blue and white uniforms. We won’t even try to explain what this is all about, we’ll leave it to Dave.
TV Watch: If you missed this morning’s live coverage of the Abu Dhabi Championship, where Rory McIlroy is in action, you can see highlights of the opening round at 7pm (Sky Sports Golf). And there are a heap of Europa League and Conference League games to choose from at 5.45pm and 8pm on TNT Sports and Premier Sports, among them Celtic’s home tie against Besiktas (TNT Sports 3 and Premier Sports 1).
