Ken Early on deeper issues in Irish football; Leinster continue domestic dominance

With no more competitive matches until the qualifier away to Portugal on September 1st, the fallout from Ireland's loss to Luxembourg looks set to rumble on for quite some time. Yesterday Stephen Kenny received the backing of the FAI and the former Dundalk boss will continue in the job but questions are mounting. However, there is very much a feeling - on one side of the table at least - that the issues in Irish football run much, much deeper and will take a long time to fix. In his column this morning, Ken Early writes that "Champagne Football was Ireland's best-selling book of 2020, but its lessons seem not to have been absorbed. We still have not accepted that there is a price to pay for the chronic mismanagement of the Irish game over the last 20 years." Meanwhile, Emmet Malone writes that Kenny will be given time to finish what he has started but that "recent history suggests that few managers survive in the long term after the sort of seismic setback like the one experienced by Ireland on Saturday night."

On to rugby and Leinster's Pro14 dominance continued on Saturday when they beat Munster to win the title again. However, the question now is whether they can follow it up with success in Europe – something Leo Cullen was quick to point out on Saturday that they could not do last year. There were few grumbles from the Munster side after the defeat at the RDS with Johann van Graan admitting that Leinster are, quite simply, at a different level to everyone else at the moment. One man among the tries was Jack Conan and afterwards he told Gerry Thornley that he feels he is on a run of form at the moment and he wants to keep it going.

Moving to golf and while the top echelons of the game were competing for the WGC World Matchplay title in Texas over the weekend, the vast majority of professional golfers continue to battle it out on the smaller tours around the world, hoping to one day hit the jackpot and reach the top. In Spain, Dubliner Cameron Raymond recently captured his first professional win and a cheque for €1,000 after turning pro three years ago when he was just 19. Speaking to Ruaidhrí Croke he lays out the realities of tour life and how solitude and frustration have to be managed. Speaking of the World Matchplay, Billy Horschel eventually overcame Scottie Scheffler to take the title last night in a final which took a lot of criticism online for the glacial pace of play while, in the Dominican Republic, two closing bogeys cost Graeme McDowell a shot at a playoff as Joel Dahmen won his first PGA Tour event. Back home courses remain closed in the Republic of Ireland (they reopen on Thursday in the North) with golfers anxiously waiting on tomorrow's Government announcement of what Covid-19 restrictions will be eased and whether golf will be included. In his column this morning Malachy Clerkin writes that the Golfmageddon has to stop and golfers have to be allowed to play.

Finally to cycling and Ian O'Riordan writes that, in Sunday's 83rd edition of Gent-Wevelgem, Sam Bennett ran out of fuel, saying afterwards that "it was just my own fault, I just tried to stay fuelled for the miles, it's such a really long race, and I over-ate, that's it. When my food was out of my stomach, it was only a matter of time before there was no energy in the legs, I just completely blew up, couldn't get any food back in."