Of all the fascinating subplots at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday, few will be as intriguing as the match-up between the two fly-halves, Jonny Sexton and Owen Farrell.

DID a strange sense of foreboding strike anyone as the final whistle blew on Saturday to deliver a well-earned Heineken Cup victory on the road for Leinster?

THERE are many Septembers in which the GAA form book is as solid and reliable as a Presbyterian family’s leather-bound Bible.

THE fearsome masked presence afield of Imanol Harinordoquy in the Biarritz gutting of Munster reminded me of a page in the classic novel Ivanhoe where the chain-mail clad Crusader, during a lull in the battles, was having a peaceful conversation with a robed Saracen.

Saracens' Darragh O'Mahony has enjoyed a successful career in England but, when the Corkman watches Munster taking on Stade Francais in the Heineken Cup quarter-final this weekend, he will find it hard to submerge a certain sense of regret. Hugh Farrelly met him in London.