Peter Jackson gets over the gain line, behind the headline.

The challenge for Leo Cullen and Stuart Lancaster is to keep players firmly focused on the task at hand in the face of the inevitable plaudits that will accompany last weekend’s incredible performance, says Donal Lenihan.

European Rugby Challenge Cup final

Donnacha Ryan has come a long way in a very short time, from Tipperary across the Pyrenees via Paris for a crack at joining one of rugby’s rarest breeds.

Worcester wing Josh Adams will make his Wales debut in Saturday's NatWest 6 Nations opener against Scotland.

Michelle de Bruin would get considerably less  than a four-year ban today, writes Jack Anderson.

Reports linking Munster and Ireland wing Simon Zebo with a move to France next summer offer a timely reminder that the annual contracts circus for players is already in full swing.

Munster 51 - Cheetahs 18: Munster coach Rassie Erasmus has warned against reading too much into the province’s eight try-rout of his native Toyota Cheetahs in a hopelessly one-sided Guinness PRO14 game at Thomond Park on Saturday.

Donncha O’Callaghan has been hailed as one of the most professional rugby players in the world after the 38-year-old former Munster legend signed on for another season in the English Premiership with Worcester Warriors.

Conor Murray remains a doubt for Munster’s Champions Cup semi-final against Saracens on Saturday afternoon according to the province’s Director of Rugby Rassie Erasmus.

We’re just over 10 years removed from Ronan O’Gara’s famous swipe at the English Premiership, but the debate on the relative merits of that league and the PRO12 will zoom back into focus on Saturday when the respective league leaders clash in a Champions Cup quarter-final in Dublin.

Pat Lam’s wife interviewed Bristol’s chairman and chief executive before her husband agreed to leave Connacht at the end of this season.

THE world of football was turned upside down last week when Leicester City won the English Premiership for the first time.

Ladbrokes is set to pay out £3m (€3.8m) to punters, if Leicester City win the English Premiership next month, and it has also attacked the conduct of rival betting firms, particularly as regards last month’s Cheltenham Festival.

Fergus McFadden believes Leinster can reap the benefits of a rejuvenated Jonathan Sexton as they prepare for a quartet of crucial Guinness PRO12 games starting with the visit of Munster to the Aviva Stadium on Saturday.

Leinster 19 Ospreys 16: The view from the Leinster coaching box was this margin of victory should never have been so tight, but such is the strength of the Guinness PRO12 right now they can expect much of the same from here on in.

Changes in broadcasting technology will eventually lead to Celtic into a British league, the club’s majority shareholder, Irish financier Dermot Desmond, has declared.

Ayumu Goramaru survived one Japanese earthquake four weeks before his international debut ten years ago and another four days afterwards. It taught him all about seismic shifts and the Richter Scale which measured the first at 6.6, the second at 5.8.

 

Ciaran Byrne will become the latest Irishman to make a full AFL debut when he lines out in Carlton’s Round 3 clash with Essendon in the MCG on Saturday. 

Munster’s Argentinian hooker Eusebio Guinazu has done a share of travelling between clubs, from his home place of Mendoza through to French outfits Toulon, Agen, Toulouse and Biarritz, on to South Africa and the Stormers and latterly to Bath in the English Premiership.

Saracens scrum-half Neil De Kock has called for his side to show better discipline as they prepare to host Munster in London on Saturday.

Battling his brother Neville as a youngster gave Robin Copeland the aggressive edge that’s serving him well in his professional day-to-day life.

It may be the Rugby Champions Cup now, but the inaugural pool draw for the new competition will have elicited reactions that are all too familiar from the days when the tournament was known as the Heineken Cup.

Munster rugby legend Mick Galwey believes Anthony Foley would have to leave the province to progress if he is not given the lead role following Rob Penney’s departure.

Ireland winger Craig Gilroy will miss Ulster’s opening Heineken Cup tie against Leicester Tigers at Ravenhill tomorrow night due to an ankle injury.

The official line from the Lions camp in Carton House yesterday was that Sean O’Brien continues to make progress with the knee injury that is threatening his participation in Saturday’s RaboDirect Pro12 final against Ulster.

Thirteen minutes. Tops.

SEAN O’BRIEN has dismissed the relevance of Bath’s poor domestic form ahead of their back-to-back Heineken Cup fixtures against Joe Schmidt’s reigning champions.

DIE-hard football fans will spend around €5,500 attending all 19 home games of their favourite English Premier League team this season.

ENGLAND World Cup hopeful Manu Tuilagi looks likely to miss the English Premiership final with Saracens after a “thuggishness” attack on Northampton winger Chris Ashton.

THE man who took me to more GAA games than I can remember once described soccer as “a decent distraction when you are reading the newspapers”.

THERE’S plenty speculation, but it’s most unlikely Paul O’Connell will return for Saturday’s Amlin Cup semi-final clash with Harlequins at Thomond Park.

Isa Nacewa has challenged Leinster to follow Ireland’s example and close down influential half-backs Toby Flood and Ben Youngs in their Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leicester tomorrow.

NINE months ago, Munster full-back Felix Jones was left to ponder his rugby future after a sickening and career-threatening injury in the Magners League clash with Connacht at Thomond Park.

IRELAND winger Tommy Bowe has described the furore over his Ospreys side playing a 16th man against Leicester last week as a “strange one”.

WHEN most were floundering in the face of unbelievable Leinster physicality, one Munster man held his nerve at the RDS last Saturday night.

THEY come to Dublin tonight with a reputation as the game’s Great Entertainers but Michael Cheika has warned that London Irish are as likely to bludgeon a side to death up front as they are cut them apart out wide.

London Irish will be without back row George Stowers for their trip to face Heineken Cup champions Leinster in the first round of the competition this year.

IN this War of Attrition, it was The Battle of the Breakdown that ultimately proved decisive, a battle just shaded by the Leinster pack.

PAUL O’CONNELL has been a talismanic figure for Munster almost since the day he first broke into the side back in 2001.

Ireland flanker Neil Best has failed in an appeal against his 18-week suspension for eye-gouging.