#ireland-sevens

#ireland-sevens

Brian Cody's views on the media at large, or at least that wretched part of it tasked with covering hurling, were dim. Roughly similar in wattage to Bobby Knight.

Robbie Cannon was in a fourball with Shane Lowry at The Grove XXIII, a small corner of paradise tucked away on the outskirts of Hobe Sound in Florida.

Corruption and bribery in youth sports undermine the integrity of the game and can negatively impact young athletes. A recent interclub game revealed blatant examples of this unethical behavior.

Nestory Irankunda netted twice amid a four-goal, 17-minute explosion that saw his side run out 5-1 victors over Curacao, marking his first goal with a Jackson-inspired celebration.

Aoibhe Brennan has earned her first call-up to the Republic of Ireland senior squad for their World Cup 2027 qualifying double-header against Poland in April.

Prague will become a byword for misery now, the scene of a collapse from a position that seemed almost too good to be true.

When I was little, like 7, and we were living in northern California, most army installations had a rugby team. My dad [a Green Beret] served over 20 years, and there's pictures of me at my dad's rugby games, which is wild to think about how full circle that's all come. He grew up playing football, then like most football players when he tried rugby, concussed himself three times in his first practice, knocked himself out, but he loved it.

In likes of Tommy O'Brien, Robert Baloucoune and Jamie Osborne, Andy Farrell has a fresh crop of winners ahead of Rugby World Cup. As the man with the deaf dog says 'it can be hard to call it'. That has been the case in the majority of this year's Six Nations but when Ireland play Scotland we now expect Ireland to win.

Ireland are comforted to the return of full fitness of Courtney Brosnan, even if her side had successfully negotiated the Belgium promotion play-offs without her, albeit not without some fraught moments for Grace Moloney. The other two changes from that last-gasp aggregate success in Leuven saw Megan Connolly displace Ruesha Littlejohn, who has played effectively no football since, while Anna Patten came in for Jess Stapleton.

Finn Russell is one of the players of his generation and debates are already ongoing in Scotland as to whether the out-half is the greatest player his country has produced. What his CV lacks is silverware and, while he's making up for lost time on that front after winning a series with the Lions and with a Bath team that looks like it can compete for the Champions Cup this season, he has plenty of unfinished business with Scotland.

No. It's out of our hands really. We can only do a certain amount. It's a game for us to play against an opponent that's had the upper hand on us for years. We're playing them away from home. They've got a brilliant record at home. It's a challenge but a real opportunity for us to go and deliver an even better performance than we did last week.

It's time to start planning for the return of Ronan O'Gara to Irish rugby. The Munster and Ireland legend has so far conducted his glittering, 13-year coaching career offshore, with stints as an assistant at Racing 92 and the Crusaders before stepping up to the top job in La Rochelle.

Tony Ward, voted the first European Player of the Year two months earlier, was dropped. He had won the award largely for his dazzling form in that season's Five Nations Championship. Then, ahead of the First Test on Ireland's tour of Australia, he was canned. It made the six o'clock news. Ward was a gifted footballer. He would go on to play in the League of Ireland for Limerick United FC, starring for them against Southampton in the Uefa Cup.