The 2019 Six Nations starts a week tomorrow, and battle lines were drawn at the official launch of the tournament in London yesterday. The opening weekend sees Wales travel to play France on Friday February 1st before Ireland welcome England to Dublin on Saturday February 2nd - and boss Joe Schmidt has said his side will be braced for a brutal afternoon at the Aviva Stadium: "It will be huge for us, particularly with what's happened in the last couple of years and even in terms of what Eddie [JONES]said recently, 'if you want to go to Ireland and get a win you're going to have to deliver a brutality'. So I think we're pretty well primed. We need to be primed anyway for what will be a really physical encounter." Schmidt - who is heading into his final championship as Ireland coach - also ruled himself out of contention for the All Blacks job, which will become vacant after the Rugby World Cup: "We've got a couple of projects that are family-related that we want to work our way through. And I don't spend a lot of time at home already so I think it's probably high time I did."
Elsewhere in today's rugby statistics column John O'Sullivan has looked at the recent accuracy of Joey Carbery off the tee, with the Munster outhalf dead-eyed since a difficult afternoon away to Castres in the Champions Cup last December. He writes: "Since then Carbery has kicked five from five against Leinster and Connacht respectively, seven from seven in the win over Gloucester at Kingsholm and three from three against the Chiefs." 20 on the bounce for Carbery - not a bed return.
Manchester City are through to the final of the League Cup after they beat Burton Albion 1-0 at the Pirelli Stadium last night, Pep Guardiola's side winning the tie 10-0 on aggregate. They will face either Tottenham or Chelsea in the final on February 24th, with Spurs currently 1-0 up heading into tonight's second leg at Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile Celtic made a fine return to action after the winter break, thrashing St Mirren 4-0 at Parkhead - the champions are now a point clear at the top after Kilmarnock also beat Rangers 2-1 last night.
Cheltenham Gold Cup antepost favourite Presenting Percy is set to finally make his seasonal bow at Gowran Park today in the Galmoy Hurdle (1.50pm). Pat Kelly's star won the same race last year en-route to a fine victory in the RSA Chase at the Festival, with his stablemate Mall Dini second-favourite for the Thyestes Chase (3.0pm), in which Willie Mullins has eight runners and Gordon Elliott has six.
Naomi Osaka will play Petra Kvitova in the Australian Open women’s final after she beat Karolína Plíšková in three sets, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4, in Melbourne this morning. Kvitova meanwhile ran out a comfortable straight sets winner, 7-6 (7-2), 6-0, over America’s Danielle Rose Collins.
And in her column this morning Sonia O'Sullivan has praised the increase of people running in Ireland - but says there should be a pathway for talented park runners to progress to a higher level. She writes: "To me there is still some obvious middle ground missing between elite athletes training for the Olympics and those running to keep fit."
