At 11am Andy Farrell named his team to take on England at Twickenham on Saturday. “Short version: Crowley in, Prendergast out. No, like, out out,” Muireann Duffy bringing you live coverage of the announcement, while Gerry Thornley will have news from Farrell’s press conference in the afternoon.
Can Farrell’s team learn from how Scotland got the better of England at Murrayfield? Is there anything the Scots did tactically that Ireland can use “to close the apparent gap between the sides?” Nathan Johns asks the question – and attempts to answer it.
The ability to slot in to a number of positions is, Gibson-Park agrees, key these days, especially when coaches are opting for 7-1 or 6-2 bench splits. Johnny Watterson talks to the scrumhalf, who practices on the wing in training, about the need for such versatility.
In Gaelic games, Ciarán Murphy looks at the role of the two-pointer in eliminating big leads, few better at the art than Meath’s Jack Flynn, while Gordon Manning has news of a motion set to go before Congress calling for the restoration of minor finals as curtain raisers to senior All-Ireland deciders.
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In football, Jonathan Liew reflects on José Mourinho’s rather putrid response to the alleged racist abuse of Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior during their Champions League game against Benfica on Tuesday.
Ian O’Riordan brings us the latest from the Winter Olympics, where American Mikaela Shiffrin “cemented her status as the greatest women’s slalom skier of all time”. And, in the same event, Ireland’s Anabelle Zurbay showed another glimpse of her potential, the teenager one of just 53 competitors to finish both runs, out of a field of 95.
Golfers? Don’t panic. Your sodden courses will, one day, dry out (if it ever stops raining). It’s “just a bad spell”, it’ll pass, Joe Bedford, an authority in golf course design, tells our Philip Reid, cheering him up no end.
It’s probably unlikely that it’ll be bucketing down at the Riviera Country Club, where Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry get their Genesis Invitational challenges under way today, Philip previewing the tournament.
And in his America At Large column, Dave Hannigan brings you the NFL’s guide to parenting which is “in a league of its own”. It’s not a new phenomena – the famed Vince Lombardi was “renowned for regularly forgetting his daughter was in the car when he was supposed to drop her to school”. Easy mistake.
TV Watch: Among today’s Winter Olympics highlights is the women’s ice hockey gold medal game between the United States and its, eh, 51st state Canada (6.10pm). Coverage from Italy continues through the day – and night – on BBC One/Two and TNT Sports. The Genesis Invitational gets under way at 3.15pm on Sky Sports Golf and at 8pm, Martin O’Neill will take charge of his 1,000th game in football when Celtic host Stuttgart in the first leg of their Europa League playoff (Premier Sports 1 and TNT Sports 1).
