The Morning Sports Briefing

Soccer

Shane Long will sit out the first leg of Ireland’s Euro 2016 play-off against Bosnia and Herzegovina next Friday - if he is to follow the advice of his club manager Ronald Koeman.

The Southampton boss has said he feels Long should sit out the international break in order to concentrate on completing his recovery from the ankle injury that has sidelined him since his last outing with Ireland. Ireland will already be without striker Jon Walters who misses out on Friday through suspension.

Ireland, meanwhile, are up 12 places to 42nd in Fifa’s latest world ranking list while Bosnia and Herzegovina, are up 10 places to number 20.

Liverpool continued to build momentum under their new manager Jurgen Klopp last night - a third win in a row, this time against Rubin Kazan in the Europa League.

Young Jordan Ibe bagged his first goal for the club on 52 minutes to seal the win. Celtic were beaten by Molde FK to leave them bottom of their group on two points - a Kris Commons goal was sandwiched by two other first half efforts by the Norwegian outfit to leave the SPL side’s qualification hopes hanging by a thread.

Rugby: Pro12

Meanwhile Rob Kearney and Ian Madigan play their first games of the new season when Leinster play the Scarlets tonight. Head coach Leo Cullen admits that Leinster can’t afford to be distracted by Sunday week’s opening Champions Cup fixture against Wasps - the lessons of last season in not making the Pro12 playoffs have been absorbed.

“The challenge for us is to balance the two tournaments. We need to be careful because of the qualification process, need to make sure we are in a good position in the league and learn lessons from last season.”

GAA

Eamonn Burns is the new Down football manager. At a meeting of the county committee on Thursday night he was, as expected, ratified as successor to Jim McCorry and will name his management team next week.

Meanwhile Sean Moran is writing about how the Waterford football final fiasco is a microcosm of the GAA fixtures chaos that exists across the association.

Waterford football manager Tom McGlinchey is frustrated at the unwillingness of the GAA to address its most pressing issues.

“It’s hardly a unique state of mind but is of particular relevance in the county where the football final between Stradbally and Ballinacourty takes place on Friday evening with the winners having to face the might of Nemo Rangers less than 24 hours later in the Munster championship.”

Athletics

The French office for financial prosecutions says Dr Gabriel Dollé joins the former IAAF president Lamine Diack and Diack’s legal adviser, Habib Cissé, under formal investigation.

The former director of the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) medical and anti-doping department, has been placed under criminal investigation, suspected of taking about €200,000 in bribes in an alleged cover-up of positive Russian doping tests.

What to watch out for

Leinster versus the Scarlets kicks-off at 7.35pm at the RDS tonight.

TG4 from 7pm

Limerick carry a one goal advantage to Finn Harps in the Airtricity League relegation/promotion play-off second leg at Finn Park. Kick-off 7.45pm.

The GAA/GPA football All Stars will be announced tonight on RTE One, from 7pm.