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City maintain winning start; Gordon D’Arcy’s cautionary tale of chasing World Cup glory

Morning Sports Briefing: Keep ahead of the game with ‘The Irish Times’ sports team

Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany in action at Vicarage Road last night. Photograph: Getty Images
Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany in action at Vicarage Road last night. Photograph: Getty Images
Wed Dec 05 2018 - 07:36

Manchester City continued their unbeaten start to the season last night, scraping past Watford with a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road. With 13 matches in 44 days, Pep Guardiola rotated his team, and the gamble paid off despite some late pressure from the hosts following a Abdoulaye Doucouré goal in the 86th minute. Elsewhere, Brighton eased to a 3-1 home victory over rivals Crystal Palace, despite the sending off of Irish centre back Shane Duffy. Tonight Liverpool also look to extend their unbeaten start away to Burnley, the biggest match of the night however is the clash between Arsenal and Manchester United. In his pre-match press-conference, José Mourinho refused to believe his relationship with his players is partly to blame for the team's struggles this season.

In his column this morning, Gordon D'Arcy tells his cautionary tale of chasing World Cup glory. Ahead of the 2015 World Cup, the former Leinster and Ireland centre put all of his efforts into making the final Irish squad, forcing him to play injured and lose sight of his job: "By the end of the Christmas/New Year's round of interpros I'd lost my place in the Leinster team so, come the Six Nations, I was in Zebre rather than Rome, Parc y Scarlets rather than the Millennium stadium . . . "

Sean Moran is in Philadelphia for the All Stars football trip, and he's explaining why the decision to drop exhibition matches may mean US trips will soon be a thing of the past: "The matches as contests had become pantomime but they were a focal point of the trip and the GAA community always gathered around them, émigrés to meet players from their own counties and locals just to see the stars of matches many would have probably watched during the championship."

Meanwhile Katie Taylor will defend her IBF and WBA World Lightweight titles against Eva Wahlstrom at Madison Square Garden - on the undercard of the Canelo Alvarez and Rocky Fielding fight - on December 15th. In unbeaten Wahlstrom, the 32-year-old Taylor faces the stiffest test of her career so far, although the Finn is 38-years-old, six older than Taylor.