For rugby in Spain, hosting the Champions Cup final will be a welcome diversion from the World Cup qualifier loss to Belgium in March, says Brendan O’Brien.

Leo Cullen was giving the press his take on Leinster’s crushing Champions Cup semi-final defeat of Scarlets at the Aviva Stadium last Saturday evening when his day brightened that little bit more with news that the province’s ‘A’ side had reached the final of the British & Irish Cup, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Officials from England and France sold visions of a bright new order, when they took a wrecking ball to the Heineken Cup, writes Brendan O’Brien

So much was so different about English football when a 33-year-old Mick McCarthy agreed to step into the breach as player-manager in the wake of Bruce Rioch’s departure from Millwall back in March of 1992, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Charlie and his appearances on the Champs Elysee in 1987 and at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico three years later, writes Brendan O’Brien. 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar presented all sorts of conundrums for opponents, writes Brendan O’Brien

Eddie Jones was the one Australian everyone wanted to hear from after Ireland dispensed with his England side so seamlessly at Twickenham last week, but it would have been interesting to mine the thoughts of his compatriot Michael Cheika, who was among the 82,062 souls looking on from the stands, writes Brendan O’Brien.

If there is a more compelling sportsperson out there right now than Ruby Walsh, then they’ve yet to go mainstream, writes Brendan O’Brien

Pat Kelly has pulled off some jaw-dropping tricks at Cheltenham this last three years, but the man’s ability to slip into the shadows in the winner’s enclosure while thousands toasted his genius has to be right up there.

Look back 100 years this summer, and Wexford were approaching the football championship with a mind to claim their fifth straight All-Ireland title.