Irish provinces have been warned they could lose their automatic Heineken Cup qualification spots as the row over the future of the competition rumbles on.

European rugby suffered another divisive blow last night after England’s Premiership clubs announced a new television deal with BT that included the sale of British broadcast rights to its own Heineken Cup matches.

After Leinster’s success, can we expect the same kind of upsurge in the national team’s fortunes?

BACK in the early spring of 2001, Brian McGoey, a keen member of the Red Army and proprietor of a Limerick restaurant, promised to provide any member of the Munster team that scored three tries in a Heineken Cup tie with a lifetime supply of pizzas.

UNDERAGE youths could be sent into pubs, off-licences and shops to see if they can purchase alcohol, under draft proposals for a new drugs strategy.

HE had another fine day with the boot — six successful kicks from seven for a total haul of 15 points — yet Ronan O’Gara wasn’t exactly jumping out of his skin with excitement: “It was looking hairy there for a while,” he admitted, “But we managed to regroup. The scores we gave away were disappointing; it was nothing they did, really, it was down to our errors.