Soccer: Champions League
Chelsea manager José Mourinho says he will make changes to his Chelsea lineup for their opening group game against Maccabi Tel Aviv tonight as he seeks to revive his side after their worst start to a top-flight campaign in 29 years.
Mourinho trained at Cobham yesterday with a 23-man squad that included Oscar and Baba Rahman; only Radamel Falcao, who is nursing a slight tendon injury, was absent.
Chelsea will look to do better than the English clubs who were in action last night, both Manchester United and Manchester City fell to 2-1 defeats in their respective openers.
City led 1-0 in the second half at the Etihad, only for last year's finalists Juventus to bounce back with goals from Mario Mandzukic and Alvaro Morata, after City captain Vincent Kompany limped off injured.
United meanwhile travelled to Holland and also let their 1-0 lead slip, albeit against far less illustrious opponents in PSV Eindhoven. Memphis Depay had got United on their way, but after a horror injury to Luke Shaw it all went a bit pear shaped for Louis van Gaal's team.
Shaw shipped a very heavy challenge from PSV defender Hector Moreno which resulted in a double leg break which is sure to rule out the English left back long-term - a real shame considering the form he had refound this season.
Elsewhere and Cristiano Ronaldo made it an incredible eight goals in two games as he bagged a hat-trick in Real Madrid's 4-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk.
GAA: Championship
The big news last night was the announcement from Tyrone GAA that Mickey Harte would indeed be continuing his role as senior football manager for a further two years.
Meanwhile this morning Kerry GAA announced that they will be revealing both their minor and senior teams for Sunday’s All-Ireland football finals on Thursday evening.
A certain Kerry legend, Darragh Ó Sé is giving his view on that game in his weekly column this morning - the former All Star midfielder is explaining the pain of a lost All-Ireland final:
“A lost All-Ireland final hangs around the county like a bad smell. You could be driving through a small village like Glenbeigh in the middle of November and there’d be one last green flag hanging off the side of a pub. The week of the final, dozens of them would have been up – flags and bunting and window paintings and the whole nine yards.”
His column this week is accompanied with a great video of himself, the great Mick O’Dwyer, and Maurice Fitzgerald all having a true Kerry chat in Waterville ahead of the decider.
Rugby: World Cup
Irish forward's coach Simon Easterby was talking to Gerry Thornley yesterday in Carton House; telling him why unlike 2007, Ireland must start with a quality performance against Canada to set the tempo for their World Cup campaign.
“They have a really good forward pack who can mix it, but they’ve also got players like [DTH]van der Merwe and [JEFF]Hassler who can mix it, who are pro players who can play at the top end of the game in Europe. When you’re mixing players who maybe are not as well known, like [AARON]Carpenter, John Moonlight and [NANYAK]Dala, they’ve got a good footballing team.”
Meanwhile in Gordon D'Arcy's column he is addressing he importance off the offload, as Ireland look to strike the balance between quick ball and unnecessary offloads in the coming weeks;
“So the million dollar question: should Ireland coach an offloading policy at this World Cup? I don’t think you can. You are either intuitively good at it or not. I never was, so I didn’t do it. You can see the guys who are: they see the gap, take the tackle on their own terms knowing exactly what they are doing before contact happens. Then they free their hands.”
Golf
Royal Dublin go head-to-head with defending champions Muskerry in today's semi-final of the Barton Shield with Shaun Carter – who joined the club after graduating from Maynooth University where he was on a Paddy Harrington Golf Scholarship – strengthening the team line-up. The O'Meara course is a regular playing ground for the scholarship students.
What to watch out for:
More Champions League action tonight, Chelsea versus Maccabi Tel Aviv is a 7.45pm kick off.
Setanta 1 from 7.40pm
Meanwhile Arsenal will look to continue their decent Premier League run in Europe as they travel to Dinamo Zagreb.
RTE 2 from 7.30pm
Also tonight AS Roma take on last year's winners Barcelona in arguably the tie of the night.
Setanta 1 from 7.40pm
