Wales will be without prop Gethin Jenkins and fly-half Rhys Priestland for their opening RBS 6 Nations clash with Ireland.

Last season’s John Smith’s Grand National runner-up Oscar Time has been ruled out for the season with a leg injury.

RONAN O’GARA has tipped Ireland to launch a major offensive on the RBS 6 Nations Championship and sees no reason why they cannot garner another Grand Slam, even without the influence of injured skipper Brian O’Driscoll.

IT MUST have been a rather chastened English contingent that arrived for their first get together under Stuart Lancaster at West Park rugby club in Leeds on Monday morning in preparation for the Six Nations championship after a calamitous weekend for their clubs in the Heineken Cup.

Harry Redknapp threatened to “sue the bollocks” off a journalist as the football boss and his former employer gave conflicting excuses for an alleged offshore tax fiddle, a court heard yesterday.

CRICKET Ireland (CI) have outlined an ambitious plan to become a Test-playing nation by 2020, in an attempt to prevent their top players declaring for England.

Billy Twomey is confident that he and Denis Lynch have won two individual spots for Ireland in the Olympics, saying that, with almost three weeks to go to the March 1 cut-off date, they cannot be caught by Spain’s Sergio Alvarez Moya.

Fabio Capello last night plunged England into crisis by resigning as the national team manager just four months before the start of Euro 2012.

Ask the question as to what Ronan O’Gara and Mike Ross have in common and the instinctive answer would probably be not a lot, apart from the fact that they are both members of Declan Kidney’s Ireland squad.

Anyone whose playing career bridged the gap from the 90s to the mid-00s will be able to testify how training sessions changed beyond all recognition.

Five-and-a-half hours.

The first appearance by Tiger Woods in America this year has inevitably dominated the build-up to the AT&T National pro-am at Pebble Beach this week.

World Cup-winning rugby star Sonny Bill Williams won the New Zealand heavyweight title with a first-round knockout of Clarence Tillman.

Most of us would have no idea what our grandparents and their world looked like on a summer day long ago — were it not for George Eastman.

The Ireland team management reacted with predictable surprise to news of Stephen Ferris’ citing yesterday but have expressed their confidence that the flanker will still be available to face France in Paris on Saturday.

Luis Suarez has spoken of his relief after returning from his eight-game ban after being found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra and insisted that his conscience remains clear.

Nicolas Anelka has revealed his goal against Republic of Ireland in the first leg of the 2010 World Cup qualifying play-off set in motion the events that led to his outburst at coach Raymond Domenech in South Africa.

To dwell too long over the legitimacy or otherwise of the penalty awarded against Stephen Ferris in the last play of Ireland’s Six Nations defeat to Wales on Sunday is to miss the point.

So, the French have their tails up while the Irish find themselves navel-gazing after a third straight defeat against the Welsh.

The final whistle had hardly sounded at the Aviva when the usual suspects were at it.