How to replace the irreplaceable?

Sometimes, Monday morning dawns, and with it an almost fully-formed pitch for these Friday musings.

Joe Schmidt’s worst nightmare? It isn’t Billy Vunipola smashing through the Irish defence in Twickenham tomorrow. It isn’t even those seven “systems failures” against the All Blacks that allowed Ryan Crotty to break Irish hearts back in November.

Ah, Rio.

In the end, all that talk of rancour and revenge was just that.

YouTube must be the mother of all rabbit holes when it comes to the internet.

Screened in over 200 countries, Super Bowl will be lapped up by well over 100 million Americans for whom it has become as symbolic of their country as Apple Pie.

The National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, tucked away down a nondescript laneway just off the M50, is a quaint kind of building for a place only turning 21 this year.

Much has been made about Jose Mourinho’s penchant for functional football during — and in the time between — his two spells at Chelsea but any lack of ambition to be found at Stamford Bridge, where they face Manchester United on Sunday, is far more endemic among the visiting ranks.

It’s almost 13 years since a basketball club was founded in the Carlow village of Ballon to cater for recreational female players aged 30 or over.