It may have sneaked up, but the opening round of this season’s reconfigured Heineken Champions Cup proved fascinating in so many ways

One wonders why Andrew Conway appeared to fall out of favour as the campaign progressed

What the Autumn Nations Cup has confirmed is that Ireland are the best of the rest with a fifth-place world ranking. I’m sure Australia and Argentina, in sixth and eighth place respectively, would fancy their chances against us right now

Donal Lenihan looks at three key areas in Ireland's Autumn Nations Cup third-place play-off with Scotland

The French management will have extracted the maximum return from this international window. Can the Irish say the same?

The 13-point win over Georgia must be seen as a disappointment from an Irish perspective

The failure to extract any return from opportunities within striking distance of the opposition line is galling, more so when they stem from a repeated failure to execute from attacking lineouts

If you continue to run into brick walls, or in this case an impregnable white wall of England defenders spread right across the pitch, you will eventually knock yourself out

Eddie Jones has built England’s identity around three key tenets. How will Ireland deal with these this afternoon?

Placed in band three of the draw, they are the opposition everyone will want to avoid