Edinburgh Airport, Saturday evening, March 30. As the Munster squad and supporters prepare to fly home after a tense quarter-final victory at Murrayfield, there are numerous emotions on display.

Johann van Graan is confident Darren Sweetnam has what it takes to fill the breach left by an injury to Keith Earls ahead of a European semi-final with Saracens that Peter O’Mahony believes will be Munster’s biggest challenge of the last three years.

Johann van Graan is confident Darren Sweetnam has what it takes to fill the breach left by an injury to Keith Earls ahead of a European semi-final with Saracens that Peter O’Mahony believes will be Munster’s biggest challenge of the last three years.

The echoes of Munster’s European semi-final defeat to Saracens two years ago may still be ringing in newspaper columns and the minds of supporters but Peter O’Mahony spoke for his squad and management yesterday when he declared his team have long since moved on, and for the better.

Passengers travelling to and from Aberdeen, Belfast, Cardiff, London Southend and Southampton were among those affected.

Noel Fehily brings down the curtain on a fine career today and the man from Dunmanway can bow out in style by steering Get In the Queue to victory in the Goffs UK Spring Sale Bumper at Newbury.

Munster skipper Peter O’Mahony will be given “every opportunity” to pass fit for this Saturday’s crunch Heineken Champions Cup pool showdown with Exeter Chiefs, head coach Johann van Graan said on Monday.

Farrell, a native of Ulster, has been desperately unfortunate with injuries.

Neither Bath nor Leinster have taken a scalpel to their fifteens this week. The weather, that brutal cocktail of wind, rain and cold, will be more of the same. Talk to Leo Cullen, though, and he will tell you that little else stays the same come the second of these back-to-back European encounters.

While Simon Zebo was impressing once again for Racing 92, his replacement Mike Haley continued his progression with a strong showing for Munster in their victory over Castres on Sunday.

The perseverance of some players is necessary to overcome damaging perceptions of them, writes Ronan O’Gara

Munster coach Johann Van Graan says winger Keith Earls is to see a specialist to determine how serious his hamstring injury is ahead of next weekend’s European action.

Johann van Graan praised Keith Earls’s selflessness in putting his side first after ruling himself out of Munster’s European clash at Exeter just before kick-off.

THAT was a game Munster will be glad to have put behind them. Johann van Graan’s side will attack with relish preparations for this Saturday’s visit of Gloucester, after returning home from a daunting, Heineken Champions Cup pool opener, at Exeter Chiefs, with a lot more than expected.

The ride into Exeter was not for the faint of heart, Munster’s charter flight buffeted violently in gale force winds. The landing was pretty white-knuckled too, not helped by the knowledge that five earlier flights had been diverted at that stage. It all made for a strong test of the constitution which would serve Johann van Graan’s men well on Saturday at Sandy Park, writes Donal Lenihan.

A new Heineken Champions Cup season, and for the first time in nine seasons a new destination for Munster supporters as they journey to Exeter for the opening pool game of the 2018-19 campaign.

When the RFU eventually begins their search to find a replacement for Eddie Jones, there is no need for them to scour the globe.

CJ Stander and Peter O’Mahony, two of the heroes of Ireland’s Grand Slam glory last season, are fully aware they cannot rest on their laurels given the host of outstanding Leinster back-row challengers for their international jerseys.

A wind turbine in Europe or North America kills, on average, 2.3 birds and 2.9 bats each year, according to a 2012 report by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology.

Munster and Irish rugby was reeling last night after it was revealed that Conor Murray, one of the game’s leading scrum-halves, was ruled out of the game for the immediate future with a recurrence of a neck injury that has troubled him at times over the past few seasons.

Munster’s squad depth ahead of the new campaign was given a stern test by English heavyweights Exeter Chiefs as Johann van Graan’s team was well beaten in Cork last night.

Four-time European champions Leinster will kick off the Champions Cup with a clash against Wasps in Dublin on Friday, October 12.

A former police officer accused of being one of California's most feared serial killers and rapists in the 1970s and 80s has been charged with eight counts of murder.

Jack Conan doesn’t so much speak as project his voice around the room.

Jonathan Sexton has addressed the confusion over his head injury assessment (HIA) last month while again highlighting his frustration at the “stigma of concussion” that has attached itself to his career.

During excavations at Paul St in central Exeter in 1983, archaeologists found the leg and wingbones of a large bird.

This afternoon’s meeting at Exeter goes ahead as planned after the track passed a second inspection.

Tuesday’s meeting at Ffos Las has been abandoned due to a waterlogged track, while this afternoon’s meeting at Exeter is under threat from waterlogging also.

Willoughby Court will bid to extend his unbeaten record over fences to three in the Betbright Dipper Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham today, writes Colin Wilson

Leinster will have to do without in-form Ireland prop Cian Healy for the Christmas and new year interprovincial derbies after he was suspended for three weeks last night.

Leo Cullen is hoping that Stuart Lancaster continues to ignore the whispers connecting him to vacant posts in the Aviva Premiership, with Northampton Saints the latest role to be painted as a good fit for the former England head coach.

All games carry a narrative, but the storyline tends to be written in a particularly prominent bold type in the run up to Christmas when the Champions Cup delivers its glut of back-to-back fixtures.

Exeter is a club that has never been asked to run before it could walk and that has fashioned an inexorable rise, writes Brendan O’Brien.

Leinster are the team to beat, the No. 1 in Europe’s power rankings. And Munster are No. 2, writes Ronan O’Gara.

Now I get it. After my maiden visit to Sandy Park, nestled in the picturesque city of Exeter, I understand why Donncha O’Callaghan has described the reigning Aviva Premiership champions as everyone’s second favourite team in England, says Donal Lenihan.

As statements go this was as big as they get.

The head of the Irish wing of Swedish furniture giant, Ikea, remained silent on its plans for a second store in Cork, but said that the firm has a “very strong growth agenda in Ireland”. It is enjoying a 10% rise in annual sales.

Time and again, Leo Cullen has teed up a Champions League tie as a meeting of opposites.

Manchester City’s Fernandinho expects Manchester United to feel the absence of Paul Pogba in this weekend’s derby.

Joey Carbery won’t be leaving Leinster anytime soon.

Lovers of Swedish furniture behemoth IKEA across the country no longer have to plan a trip to Ballymun in Dublin in advance -- they can now shop from the comfort of their own home.

A dog breeder in England who made more than £100,000 by trafficking women onto a "sexual conveyor belt" across England and Wales has been jailed for four years.