1 Can Declan Kidney turn the tactical tide on Warren Gatland?

It doesn’t seem long ago but it’s more than a decade all the same. Paul O’Connell, raw and big-boned, was 21 when I first set eyes on him. It wasn’t long before I wanted to throttle him.

There is a strange sense of Groundhog Day about Ireland’s opening two fixtures in this season’s RBS Six Nations Championship.

IT MUST have been a rather chastened English contingent that arrived for their first get together under Stuart Lancaster at West Park rugby club in Leeds on Monday morning in preparation for the Six Nations championship after a calamitous weekend for their clubs in the Heineken Cup.

AFTER the drama of Friday night when Gloucester and Connacht turned form and expectations on its head by beating Toulouse and Harlequins in Pool 6, you sensed it was going to be one of those dramatic Heineken Cup weekends.

For Shannon, his job was to make life as uncomfortable as possible for me in the lineout by attacking my back, while Ginger McLoughlin was invariably placed in front of me to form a two-pronged assault.

AS weekends go, this one must have been especially tough for Connacht.

PAUL O’CONNELL’S decision to commit to Munster until the end of the 2013/14 season is about the only bit of good news to come the province’s way over the last few weeks.

THE last thing the IRFU court is controversy.

WE may be immersed in the Christmas break but for the players and management of the provincial sides, it represents one of the busiest periods of the year.