For rugby in Spain, hosting the Champions Cup final will be a welcome diversion from the World Cup qualifier loss to Belgium in March, says Brendan O’Brien.

Officials from England and France sold visions of a bright new order, when they took a wrecking ball to the Heineken Cup, writes Brendan O’Brien

Recently-qualified Irish primary teachers are giving pupils a good grounding in science, with more classroom experiments than older colleagues.

Irish students are achieving strong standards in science despite spending less time than most others learning the subject at second-level.

Efforts to get more boys reading fiction are paying off. They are catching up on girls in literacy skills.

Irish primary pupils are the best in Europe at reading and boys here have improved their skills more than girls in the last five years.

A Spanish judge has ordered that four prominent members of the Catalan independence movement should remain in custody, including the vice-president of the ousted regional government.

Ryanair's dismissal of a pilot in 2000 led others to believe that being a staff representative in the company was "a very dangerous thing", a former pilot being sued by the airline told the High Court.

Ryanair is not trying to punish three pilots for speaking out, the airline's human resources boss had told the High Court.

Junior Certificate students will no longer be asked in exams to prove Pythagoras’ or anybody else’s theorems under a revised junior cycle maths course.

Ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont has criticised the passivity of European politicians in denouncing the prosecution of dismissed secessionist officials.

Michael O’Leary has insisted his employees have the best job security in Europe, as well as a “sophisticated” collective bargaining process.

The electrochemist and lecturer is one of only three Irish-based researchers overall to be awarded an ERC starting grant in 2017.

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A University of Limerick (UL) researcher has been given €1.5m for pioneering work on generating clean energy through photosynthesis — the only Irish scientist granted by the European Research Council (ERC) in the physical science field this year.

Champions Cup boss Vincent Gaillard may be French but he does not want to see European rugby’s premier club competition dominated by clubs from the Top 14 or England’s Aviva Premiership.

Education Minister Richard Bruton has announced appointments to the first board of the Educational Research Centre (ERC) — 10 months after it became a statutory agency.

Cavan’s Jonathan Pringle (Ford Escort) and co-driver James Fulton took a controlled victory on the Midleton-based Imokilly Rally, round four of the PlasticBags.ie Southern 4 Rally Championship.

Waterford’s Craig Breen (26) will defend his Circuit of Ireland title against opposition that includes European Rally Champion and last year’s event runner-up Kajetan Kajetanowicz along with former triple British rally champion Keith Cronin and Ulster driver Alastair Fisher.

CJ Stander acknowledged the encouragement and drive of his team-mates after being named Munster’s Player of the Year at the province’s 2015 Munster Rugby Awards in Cork yesterday.

News last week the appointment of a chairman and a director general have had to be put on hold for the time being offered a timely reminder of the difficulties faced in satisfying the diverse interests of the stakeholders on the board of European Professional Club Rugby (EPCR), says Donal Lenihan.

Another January afternoon out in Tallaght and the National Basketball Arena is throbbing, writes Kieran Shannon.

European rugby bosses have confirmed internal wrangling and moving competition headquarters from Dublin to Switzerland could delay the appointment of a figurehead chairman for the revamped continental game by five months.

Motorsport: Waterford’s Craig Breen begins his attack on the European Rally Championship that gets underway today with the Internationale Jannerrallye in Austria.

A stronger voice may emerge for people with disabilities on legal reforms in areas such as sexual consent, criminal responsibility or medical treatment from a new research project.

The first students to learn a new maths course did better than others on international tests — but do not like the subject as much as those taught the older way.

Billionaire Bruce Craig was one of the key drivers behind the changes in European rugby that he believes gives his Bath project the stimulus to succeed.

There was a genuine fear not so long ago that European rugby, despite the magnificence of the Heineken Cup and the manner in which it transformed the club game over 15 years, could well have been consigned to history.

Fasten the seat-belt and take a firm grip of something solid, suggests Donal Lenihan.

Although not exactly threadbare, Declan Boyle’s title aspirations in the Dunlop National Rally Championship hinge on securing maximum points from all three remaining rounds.

Guinness Pro12 title holders Leinster will entertain Wasps in round one, the London club having qualified through the new play-off system at the end of last term.

It was a victory to savour for the locals as Donegal cousins Declan Boyle and Brian Boyle (Subaru) won the Letterkenny-based Donegal International Rally, round four of the Clonakilty Blackpudding Irish Tarmac Championship.

Michael Cheika has landed himself in hot water again.

Munster legend Ronan O’Gara has labelled the ERC’s decision to play a Heineken Cup semi-final in an unfinished stadium as a “disgrace”.

Munster will struggle to reach the levels of consistency they achieved in the Heineken Cup in the new European Champions Cup due to the levels of finance being injected into the game by French and English clubs, according to Donncha O’Callaghan.

The ERC has assured supporters that Stade Velodrome in Marseille is ready to stage Sunday’s Heineken Cup semi-final despite a massivere development programme which is nearing completion.

Considered the best travelling rugby supporters in Europe, Munster’s Red Army is on the move again, with as many as 6,000 expected to descend on the Mediterranean city of Marseilles in the coming days.

On home ground, it is not surprising that there is a wave of expectation on Craig Breen to win the Discover Northern Ireland Circuit of Ireland Rally, round four of the European Rally Championship that gets underway in Belfast this morning.

The two-year disagreement over the future of European club rugby has been resolved.

Aer Lingus has brought forward the start of its summer schedule to Marseilles to accommodate Munster fans travelling for the Heineken Cup semi-final.

Munster rugby have been given an initial allocation of 12,000 tickets for the Heineken Cup semi-final against reigning champions Toulon on Sunday April 27.