SIX NATIONS champions France have remained under the radar this autumn with low-profile winning performances against Fiji and Argentina going largely unnoticed. That was before Australia arrived at the Stade de France Saturday night and dismantled their hosts 59-16.

WALES boss Warren Gatland has rejected accusations that Ryan Jones was made a scapegoat for his team’s shambolic draw against Fiji a week ago.

HANDING Harry Redknapp’s mob the odd crumb of comfort in 17 years isn’t really grounds for the renting of Gooner clothes and the donning of sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless there were enough angry fans calling for the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater, when the final whistle blew on Saturday’s fiasco.

MUNSTER Council chiefs have opted to replay the senior football championship semi-final between Cork and Kerry on Sunday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh (3.30pm) to avoid a repeat of the crowd delays which marred the corresponding fixture last year.

ONE can imagine the pundits dismissing this game as a carnival showpiece, such was the freedom afforded to the forwards on both sides, but you’d have to be a real crank not to have been entertained by this stupefying game.

UNFORTUNATELY, the decision which hugely influenced this Munster football semi-final in Fraher Field was not made by the Limerick or Waterford management team or a player from either side but by the referee Syl Doyle.

ONE was a foot soldier and the other a commander-in-chief when Galway ruled the roost in Connacht and beyond but there was an inescapable sense of a baton being passed under Ben Bulben’s watchful eye on Saturday evening.

IRELAND’S U20s face an uphill struggle to qualify for the semi-finals of the IRB Junior World Championships after suffering injury-time heartbreak in their opener against France in Rosario.

Carrigtwohill 2-14 Killeagh 1-10

Ireland 23 Barbarians 29

THEY thought about moving, they thought about going all contemporary on makeover and extension front – and eventually this couple of practicing architects went the seemingly modest route for their own family home.

RORY McILROY suspects he might still have been unable to catch runaway eight-shot winner Louis Oosthuizen no matter what happened in Friday’s second round, but he also realises his failure to cope with the dreadful conditions cost him, at the very least, a serious chance of challenging for the claret jug.

DUBLIN hurling boss Anthony Daly admits his future is unclear after his charges sensationally crashed out of the All-Ireland SHC race at Croke Park on Saturday.

DUBLIN hurling boss Anthony Daly admits his future is unclear after his charges sensationally crashed out of the All-Ireland SHC race at Croke Park on Saturday.

THIS is almost surreal.

WATERFORD manager Davy Fitzgerald was elated at the final whistle on Saturday night and was loud in praise of his charges.

CORK substitute Paudie O’Sullivan was disappointed at the final whistle on Saturday but paid tribute to Waterford on their win.

THE WEEKEND of the British Open, which is detailed elsewhere in these pages, is a perfect cue for talk of tradition and the past, though the (doubtless) heroics of various slacks-wearing, v-neck sporting super-athletes need not detain us here.

GAA President Christy Cooney has broken his silence on the controversial Leinster SFC final between Meath and Louth admitting he would have liked to have seen the game replayed.

Ulster SFC Final