The Morning Sports Briefing

City and Real draw a blank

Manchester City have given themselves a fighting chance of making an improbable Champions League final after they earned a 0-0 draw with a disappointing Real Madrid at Eastlands last night.

Zinedine Zidane’s side were without Cristiano Ronaldo and it showed, as they produced a toothless performance in the absence of the great man and rarely looked like scoring a potentially decisive away goal.

In the second semi-final tonight Atletico Madrid welcome Bayern Munich to the Vicente Calderon.

Poor start to Punchestown for Willie Mullins

Willie Mullins endured a poor start to the Punchestown Festival yesterday as he saw his two hotpots, Yorkhill and Vautour, soundly beaten.

Barry Geraghty and Jessica Harrington's 16-1 Don't Touch It took advantage of an out of sorts Yorkhill to take the Champion Novice Hurdle before Paddy Brennan guided 9-1 God's Own, who capitalised to win when Vautour fell at Aintree, to victory in the Champion Chase ahead of the odds on favourite.

Brennan will have the chance for more Grade One success today when he rides Cue Card in the Punchestown Gold Cup at 5.30 with Colin Tizzard’s English hero 4-7 to cap off a fine year in style.

Les knows importance of Leinster visit

Ulster welcome Leinster to Ravenhill at the weekend and boss Les Kiss is under no illusions how important a win is as the province look to secure a play-off place in what he described as the toughest league campaign he has witnessed.

He said: “If we win this weekend and a certain result goes our way then we probably can’t be knocked out of the top four.”

Dublin’s perfect campaign

And in his column todaySean Moran reflects on what was a pretty perfect league campaign for Dublin, he writes: "It's early days yet and Dublin know that the challenge they had on Sunday is unlikely to be the hardest test they receive all year but if you'd asked Jim Gavin at the start of the year what he wanted from the league, he could hardly have asked for much more than it delivered."

What to watch out for:

Football

Atletico Madrid play Bayern Munich in the Champions League semi-finals (RTE 2, BT Sport Europe, 7.45pm ko)

Racing

Day two of the Punchestown festival including the Punchestown Gold Cup (RTE 2, 5.55pm)