Let’s hope that the Grand Slam hasn’t been treated as some sort of interloper around the team room in Carton House this week. Keith Earls was on the money when he said that the next two games were the biggest of his Irish career.

MIKE Prendergast would have had some head on him this week. That sort of bould Limerick ‘I told you so’ head.

Warren Gatland will be wondering what Joe Schmidt can throw at Wales, writes Ronan O’Gara

The Scarlets are in Dublin tomorrow for a PRO14 meeting with Leinster. It’s not the real Scarlets, of course. 

Are you a red, blue, yellow, or green personality type? And which of those boxes does a particular player fit into?

The psychology of sport is based on preparing better, believing you are better, and being better than the opposition. And at the elite level, possessing a ruthless, clinical instinct to drive home that superiority.

Locking down Keith Earls to a new contract that keeps him in Munster until after the 2019 World Cup was a piece of savvy business Lansdowne Road mightn’t have got due credit for, says Ronan O’Gara.

Christchurch feels very safe and secure. And the Ireland in me had forgotten how much you savour those things. The contrast from Paris is huge. There is no anger in this world. On the RER in Paris, every nationality in the world is around you.

By New Year’s Eve, we had disconnected the television at the house in Paris, so I had to slip next door to a pub-restaurant I knew prided itself on multi-screen sports. Montpellier-Brive was on one channel and off in the corner, with a few quiet seats underneath it was coverage of Racing 92’s trip down to Oyonnax.