Joe Schmidt was straight up. Bonus points? Not for him.

The @SSEAirtricityLg account didn’t even run a list of full-time scores during Cork City’s game against St Patrick’s Athletic on Saturday, writes Brendan O’Brien

The full house signs on the approaches to Dalymount Park for tonight’s derby meeting of Bohemians and Shamrock Rovers sit comfortably with a domestic game that is once again allowing itself to embrace a guarded sense of optimism. 

Christy Ring doesn’t often spring to mind on Six Nations weekends, but the great one’s remark about the GAA being half-dressed without a strong Tipperary could be easily tweaked for France, such is its importance to rugby as another championship dawns and Ireland make the trip to Paris unburdened by the terror of old.

Chris McElligott probably didn’t need any reminders as to football’s extraordinary ability to inspire but he got it anyway last October when Turkey claimed the inaugural European Amputee Football Championship at a heaving Vodafone Park in Istanbul with a 2-1 defeat of England.

Shuffle forward a week from now and the drawbridge will close on applications for the role of the GAA’s next director general. Interesting times lie ahead, but the process of appointing Pauric Duffy’s successor has already shone a revealing light on an association at war with itself.

Hard to believe but it’s over six years since Dublin GAA’s provocative ‘Blue Wave’ strategic plan was met with a tsunami of snipes.

Most of us would be thrilled to be granted the one wish — and even a genie only offers three — but Irish sport is a vast tent that covers many tribes so here are 10 stories we hope to see written in the 12 months to come.

Cancelling Christmas isn’t an obvious means of ingratiating yourself with a raft of new employees but it appears that Sam Allardyce can do no wrong at Everton where the latest chapter in one of British football’s most intriguing careers has kicked off on the most promising of intros.

Exeter is a club that has never been asked to run before it could walk and that has fashioned an inexorable rise, writes Brendan O’Brien.