He had a worryingly lengthy injury list to contend with when choosing his squad for the Six Nations, but Andy Farrell has managed to muster 37 hale and hearty-ish troopers for the campaign. Gerry Thornley takes you through the squad, which includes two uncapped players, Munster lock Edwin Edogbo and Ulster scrumhalf Nathan Doak. While there will be “the usual tiresome guff about not bringing in more young players”, Gerry reckons there can be “few gripes” about Farrell’s choices.
John O’Sullivan picks out three winners and losers from the selection, while Johnny Watterson hears Hugo Keenan express his hope that he’ll be back in action “in the next couple of weeks” having being out since July with a hip injury.
If there were no great surprises in Farrell’s squad, there were three humongous ones in French coach Fabien Galthie’s panel for the Six Nations opener against Ireland in Paris on February 5th. As Gerry puts it, Damian Penaud, Gregory Alldritt and Gael Fickou have all been “guillotined”.
There are a couple of family affairs in the Irish under-20 squad named earlier this week, with two sets of brothers - Zac and Bryn Ward and Ben and Jack Murphy, sons of Ulster coach Richie - included. And, writes John O’Sullivan, “Joshua Kenny’s remarkable rise continues apace”.
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In Gaelic games, Ian O’Riordan reports on the latest in the calls for the GAA to drop Allianz as sponsor of the National Leagues due to their parent company holding Israeli government bonds, Dublin players left to decide for themselves whether they will boycott Allianz signage during interviews.
Ciarán Murphy, meanwhile, is discovering that he’s not getting any younger, the realisation hitting him hardest when he has to engage in some running during training for his club’s thirds. His hips felt like they’d spent “eight hours in a vice” the morning after a session last week.
In golf, Rory McIlroy has urged Tyrrell Hatton and Jon Rahm to pay the fines imposed on them by the DP World Tour for their involvement with LIV Golf, rather than appealing against them, as they are doing. Philip Reid fills you in on McIlroy’s latest thoughts on the sport’s civil war.
In sports funding, Sport Ireland announced a record allocation of €33.36 million for National Governing Bodies of Sport and Local Sports Partnerships on Wednesday. Ian has the details.
And in his America at Large column, Dave Hannigan tells the grim story of former New York Giants player Sam Beal who has been missing since July. The 29-year-old had been struggling with mental health problems, yet another journeyman chewed up and spat out by his sport.
TV Watch: The Dubai Desert Classic, featuring Rory McIlroy, Shane Lowry, Tom McKibbin and Pádraig Harrington, got under way in the early hours this morning - there’ll be highlights on Sky Sports Golf at 3.30pm and at midnight. There’s racing from Gowran Park on RTÉ 2 (1.30pm), the course passing an inspection on Wednesday after heavy rain. Later there are a bunch of Europa League games to choose from, including Bologna v Celtic (Premier Sports 1 and TNT Sports 2, 5.45pm) and Evan Ferguson’s Roma v Stuttgart (TNT Sports 3, 8pm).
