Compiled by John O'Sullivan
Murphy calls for unity
A couple of hours before last Friday night's game between Ireland and France at the Stade de France in the same Paris suburb of Saint Denis, Connor Murphy, a minister on the Northern Ireland executive, and Seanna Walsh (Sinn Féin), laid a wreath at Rue Bobby Sands in the company of the local mayor, Didier Paillard.
The moment was captured by a photographer from L'Equipe. Murphy was asked for his opinion on Ireland's Call, an anthem played before rugby matches when Ireland play outside Lansdowne Road and along with Amhrán na BhFiann at Lansdowne Road and recently Croke Park.
While admitting he didn't much care for Ireland's Call he did say to local reporters: "I wish that soccer, which has Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland teams, would follow the example of boxing, equestrian sports and rugby in having an all-Ireland team. Sport is a great way to bring the different communities together. A number of unionists have started playing hurling and Gaelic football. It's very positive."
Poetry in motion
In the interests of finding out the innermost thoughts of the Argentinian players ahead of Sunday's Pool D finale against Ireland at the Parc des Princes, this column undertook a pilgrimage of sorts to their retreat in the northern Paris suburb of Enghien-les-Bains. This necessitated a 23-station journey on the Metro - changing once at Odeon - and on arriving at Gare du Nord, an RER train journey.
Obviously there is quite a bit of time to kill en route, so a cursory examination of the carriage on the first Metro train saw that in honour of the World Cup small snippets of poetry from writers born in the competing countries adorn the carriage.
This column noticed the one nearest us was from a Portuguese poet - we think Fernando Pessoa - whose short poem was translated into French under the title "The World is Oval". So now you know where we got the name for this column: the sports editor is obviously a big fan of Portuguese poetry.
Habana has high hopes
It's nice to see that some players have no problem talking openly about what they'd like and South African flyer Bryan Habana is one, judging by his comments when asked if he wanted to finish as the top try scorer at the World Cup.
"Definitely. One of the aspects we came to this World Cup with was that every player knew what he was coming for, that every player was going to try to make his best contribution in the team. And my contribution is the energy on the field and to cross the white line and score tries.
"You want to rate yourself the best in the world but to do that you have to cross the whitewash on a couple of occasions. It is very nice to have records but the overall contribution you make to the team effort is a lot more important."
Irish on crash course
It seems the Irish management has been slipping away at night to relieve some of the stress that's built steadily throughout this World Cup.
The venue is the local go-karting track near the hotel and apparently it's all quite competitive. We're not sure what rules of the road are being broken but we doubt there's much indicating done.
Quotes of the day
"Their scrum is good but I don't think it's quite as good as New Zealand - not to contradict the boss or anything." - Scottish captain Jason White offers a different view of the Italian scrum to that of his coach Frank Hadden ahead of Saturday's pivotal pool clash.
"It's been normal enough, I am just so happy after missing out on the (original) squad of 30 because of my injury, but I am all right now and getting better." - Sireli Bobo following his call-up to the Fiji squad because of an injury to Filimone Bolavucu. It's good to see he's all right but getting better.
