Ireland’s 22-19 triumph over the world’s fifth-ranked nation last Friday night was, writes Gerry Thornley, “a good win over a very good team in a good game with, praise be the Lord, a pretty decent atmosphere”. But? “Plenty appear to have been decidedly unimpressed, most of all by the Irish performance.” Have we become a bit spoilt? Gerry believes so. “All of the success which this Irish team has enjoyed has served to raise expectations. We have become more than a little entitled, and it doesn’t suit us.”
Among the unimpressed is Owen Doyle, describing it as “a decidedly mixed performance with question marks all over the second half”. And he has his doubts about the legitimacy of what proved to be the winning score, reckoning that Caelan Doris was guilty of obstruction in the build-up to Joe McCarthy’s try. But one man who will reflect with no end of positivity on the occasion is Thomas Clarkson after he made his Test debut.
Heimir Hallgrímsson, alas, couldn’t take much positivity at all from that trip to Wembley, Gavin Cummiskey looking back at the 5-0 humbling and wondering where it leaves this Republic of Ireland side ahead of their World Cup qualification campaign, the draw for which takes place next month.
In Gaelic games, a fortnight after James McCarthy announced his retirement Dublin have been left reeling by the loss of another of their greats, Brian Fenton deciding to step away from Dessie Farrell’s squad. That decision, writes Gordon Manning, “leaves a big void in the heart of the Dublin team”, Fenton “one of the greatest midfielders in the history of the game”.
In golf, Philip Reid reflects on Rory McIlroy’s year, one that “may be remembered as much for failings as successes”, but still one that yielded no end of good days, culminating in a sixth career win in the season-long DP World Tour order of merit. And Shane Lowry can look back on 2024 with no little pride either. “It proved to be the most consistent of his career so far, with a string of top-10s and just two missed cuts in a campaign that saw him play in 28 tournaments.”
And in racing, Brian O’Connor looks at the strength in depth of JP McManus’s squad for this season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup, the road to which starts for three of them in Sunday’s Punchestown’s €150,000 feature, the John Durkan Chase.
TV Watch: It’s a decidedly quiet day on the live action front, the best we can offer you is the meeting of Wales and Iceland in the Nations League (Virgin Media Two, 7.45). Calm down.
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