At least that’s Argentina put to bed.

Welcome back England, we missed you, writes Brendan O’Brien

For years now this column asked itself: ‘what exactly does Allianz see in the national football and hurling leagues that most of us don’t?’

It’s more than a quarter of a century since the Berlin Wall came down and communism was rolled up like a musty carpet across Eastern Europe.

Rarely does a day pass in this country without a wonderfully evocative image appearing in the national papers from some sporting event or other and yesterday’s shot in these pages of Patrick Cronin striking the sliotar amidst the floodlights and flurries of snow during Cork and Waterford’s pre-season meeting in Mallow certainly ticked that particularly box.

Our boxers, used to gruelling training camps in places like Russia, will finally be able to entertain the world’s best in their own backyard, writes Brendan O’Brien

As the island of Ireland prepares to field two teams at this year's Euro2016 Championships, Brendan O'Brien, suggests the next six months could say much about how we see ourselves, both north and south.