HOCKEY: Trinity's Peter Blakeney and Joe Brennan of Glenanne have been added to the Irish squad for this week's games against Belgium in Brussels following the withdrawal of Iain Lewers (stomach bug) and doubts over Karl Burns' fitness (leg injury), writes Mary Hannigan.
IRISH SQUAD: S Redpath, D Robb (both Annadale), G Lennox, E Magee (both Banbridge), C Henderson (Corinthian), K Burns, D Hobbs , J Jermyn (all Church of Ireland), S Nicholson, M Black (both Cork Harlequins), P Maguire, P Blakeney (both Trinity), J Brennan, G Shaw (both Glenanne), M Gleghorne (Loughborough University), R Gormley (Pembroke Wanderers).
BOXING: The Irish team have been given an excellent start to the World Championships in Mianyang City, China, with convincing victories for Kenneth Egan and Eric Donovan.
Today sees the other three Irish boxers enter the fray in the round of 32. First into the ring will be Conor Ahern, the Baldoyle flyweight (51 kg). He faces the current European silver medallist from Georgia, Nica Izoria. The 18-year-old Georgian is a class act but Ahern has the advantage of coach Zaur Antia in the corner.
Antia oversaw the development of Izoria in his native Georgia before his move to Ireland and is the right man to plan tactics against his former protege.
Darren Sutherland, middleweight (75 kg), is in against Badrakh from Mongolia. This is a step into the unknown with not too much information available about his opponent. The Mongolian team is full of durable operators and the DCU student can expect a tough fight.
Roy Sheehan, the welterweight from the St Michael's Club in Athy, faces a Croatian, Katalinic Borna.
Egan returns to the ring tomorrow for his round of 32 bout against Swede Babacar Kamara. The schedule for the light heavies will be punishing with the bouts scheduled every night Wednesday through Sunday. Eric Donovan's last 16 fight against the rated Romanian Simion Viorel is on Thursday.
CYCLING: Eugene Moriarty finished off the PowerNet Tour of Southland with another strong placing, taking his third top-10 result of the race when he sprinted home fifth on the final 78.6 kilometre stage to Invercargill. The Sycamore Print rider crossed the line in the same time as the winner Greg Henderson (Southland Times), who proved quicker than Hayden Godfrey and Werner Riebenbauer (both Subway) in the bunch gallop. Andrew McQuaid finished 18 minutes down in 84th place.
Henderson was also victorious in the first of the day's two stages, again getting the better of Godfrey and Riebenbauer in a mass sprint into Lumsden. McQuaid and Moriarty placed 29th and 37th on the 80 kilometre leg.
The final overall honours went to Trek/Zookeepers Café rider Gordon McCauley, who jumped from fifth to first overall when he, team-mate Jaaron Poad and Anthony Chapman (Creation Signs) reached the stage eight finish 15 minutes clear.
Moriarty was 20th, 23 minutes and 42 seconds back, while McQuaid was 70th, one hour five minutes and five seconds down.
GOLF: Rain and thunderstorms forced play to be abandoned in the fifth and penultimate round in the European Tour's qualifying school finals at San Roque Club, Cadiz yesterday.
The 84 players who survived Sunday's fourth round cut will complete round five today before teeing off at 10.0 local (9.0 Irish) for the last 18 holes with 30 European Tour cards for the 2006 season up for grabs.
Britons David Griffiths, Robert Rock and Tom Whitehouse head the field at nine under par, after eight holes of the fifth round, with compatriot David Dixon six shots behind in fourth place. Dixon, four under for his round, had completed nine holes.
BOXING: Joe Calzaghe has vowed his highly-anticipated super-middleweight unification showdown with American Jeff Lacy will "secure my legacy" after promoter Frank Warren announced a new date has been agreed.
WBO champion Calzaghe will take on IBF champion Lacy in Wales in 2006 after the fight - originally agreed for this month - had to be postponed due to a hand injury suffered by the Welshman.
Sports Network chief Warren travelled to the United States last week to tie up a deal with Lacy's promoter Gary Shaw and American television network Showtime and has signed a deal for the fight to take place in Cardiff in February or March.
"This is the fight that I have been shouting out for over the last few years and I am delighted that Frank has secured it," said the 32-year-old. "It has been my dream to unify titles since I won the WBO crown against Chris Eubank over eight years ago and this fight against Lacy is the one that will secure my legacy.
"I was disappointed more than anyone when the fight against Lacy had to be postponed because I broke my hand but that is in the past and I'm now fully focused on fighting and beating Lacy.
"I saw Lacy's last fight against Scott Pemberton and it was impressive but against me he is going to be in the ring with the hardest hitting super-middleweight out there and he will know it.
"I look at Lacy as a guy on the way up in his career, not a guy on the way out, so I know that he is going to be hungry to take my title but that's not going to happen."
Warren added: "This is the fight that Joe, the media and the fans wanted and I am absolutely delighted that following some hard work over the last few days the fight is on.
"It will be the biggest fight of the year in Britain and certainly one of the most highly-anticipated fights on the world scene in recent years."
