THIRTY seconds from the end of the game in the Bernabeu stadium on Saturday, with Real Madrid trailing 3-2 to Zaragoza, the fourth official flashed up a board indicating there would be 100 minutes of added time.

CARLO ANCELOTTI says he is “not interested” in Salomon Kalou’s pleas for first-team football at Stamford Bridge.

PAUL LAMBERT last night led Norwich back to the Barclays Premier League and then branded the achievement a “miracle”.

RARELY does league fare take centre stage in the imagination of hurling folk, especially not outside the top tier, but such was the interest in this crucial Allianz Hurling League Division Two final that Ennis on Saturday evening bore all the hallmarks of a championship encounter.

IT WASN’T pretty, it wasn’t very competitive — in fact, truth be told, this was an ugly beast of an Allianz Hurling League Division 1 final in Croke Park yesterday, a one-sided affair that never got off the ground.

WELL, Emerson said the best period to be born in is when the old and the new stand side by side (Ralph Emerson, by the way; not Hughie).

AN emotional and historic day at Donnybrook as Old Belvedere toppled champions Cork Constitution to claim the top prize in Irish club for the first time yesterday.

CONOR O’Shea may spend most of his time in London these days but he clearly knew enough about Irish and especially Munster rugby to plan and plot their downfall at Thomond Park on Saturday.

AFTER so pulsating a spectacle as this Heineken Cup semi-final, it is difficult to imagine how the final in Cardiff in just under three weeks will come anywhere close to matching it.

BRIAN CODY last night defended his Kilkenny team’s discipline in the face of Eoin Larkin’s sending off and a couple of other extreme exchanges involving his players during their 0-22 to 1-7 defeat to Dublin in yesterday’s Allianz Hurling Division 1 final.

WEST HAM manager Avram Grant believes his team cannot afford to lose any of their remaining three matches if they are to remain in the Premier League.

IT was one of the images of the 2010 championship.

"I’M not ruling out Kilkenny,” says Eddie Keher. “But…”

TONY MCGAHAN could not have asked for better preparation for Munster’s Amlin Challenge Cup semi-final than this dramatic victory at the Ospreys.

NOT for the first time, a controversial refereeing decision played an inordinately prominent part in deciding the outcome of a game in Croke Park but, this being the second tier of the league, no-one got too hot and bothered about it all.

IT would appear that, for once, Liverpool fans are not going to do as Kenny Dalglish has asked.

SPENDING a sunny Easter Sunday afternoon watching the Old Firm match is one way to end up questioning your priorities in life.

ARSENE WENGER accepts it is a “vicious circle” when his Arsenal team face continual questions about their mental strength, but has no doubt they have the character to win their last five matches and be crowned Premier League champions.