IN financing the contract that keeps Sean O’Brien at Leinster and with Ireland for at least two more years, the IRFU has cleverly looked beyond the euro signs and the zeros.

I was back in Bruff last weekend. Well, its French equivalent.

I hardly noticed. Six months in Paris came and went on New Year’s Day.

In a city the size of Paris, you can hide in plain sight. The streets of Cork and Limerick don’t afford a hurting rugby player such crumbs of comfort.

EVER return somewhere, full of nostalgic memories, believing everything would be just like before, only to be disappointed? Going back to Thomond Park last Sunday was nothing like that at all.

It’s been a feelgood week around the Racing training ground in Paris.

You like your Friday glass half-full or half-empty? Joe Schmidt will have learned a lot over the past month working with players he didn’t have as coach to Leinster.

Strange day, strange performance by Ireland last Saturday.

Whisper it. There’s something special brewing in Irish rugby

The Irish jersey hasn’t been a good place to be in 2013.