If a week can be a long time in politics, in football it can feel like an entire lifetime.

Aidan O’Brien’s ante-post favourites Camelot and Maybe head the entries for the Qipco 2000 and 1000 Guineas respectively.

TWO things really set me on edge at the weekend.

Chelsea have agreed to sign Werder Bremen midfielder Marko Marin.

Barring an unexpected hitch, Roy Hodgson will become the new England manager after it was confirmed last night that the Football Association had been granted permission to speak with the West Brom boss.

IRELAND’s love-affair with the Heineken Cup is about to reach into the stratosphere, with a first ever all-Ireland final at the headquarters of English rugby in three weeks.

Giovanni Trapattoni has said that he expects his players to be responsible and to “not betray the Irish people” by breaching discipline off the pitch during the European Championship finals.

It’s been a fallow few seasons for Cork Harlequins in national competitions, but they continued to roll back the years in stunning style on Saturday to see off Banbridge 2-1 and progress to the Irish Senior Cup semi-finals.

An Irish crystal company is poised to tap into the current goodwill from the Chinese market towards business in this part of the world — with the help of former employees of a world-famous brand.

The Spanish team may not be the only European champions Ireland face this summer.

It had to happen sometime, I suppose: Luis Suarez getting the headlines for the one thing he is actually paid to do...

Ulster’s progress today to a Heineken Cup final depends on...

Forget the heroics of 1999, in picking Paddy Jackson to start at fly-half in today’s Heineken Cup semi-final with Edinburgh (5.45pm), Brian McLaughlin could not have sent out a clearer message to the Ulster faithful that his team is ready to write a new chapter in their history.

The All Blacks side to tackle Ireland in a three-test series will be named on June 3.

Bridesmaid. It’s a word that seems to provoke equal amounts of fear and loathing from members of the opposite sex, much to the incomprehension of men everywhere.

Neil Lennon has expressed regret over the incident at the end of the Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Hearts at Hampden a fortnight ago which is likely to see him hit with another touchline ban, according to first-team coach Alan Thompson.

Seventy-three people were killed and at least 1,000 injured on Wednesday after a soccer pitch invasion in the Egyptian city of Port Said, in what a minister called the biggest disaster in the nation’s soccer history.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger hopes the Gunners’ defensive injury crisis may be easing after full-back Kieran Gibbs returned to full training, although not in time for tonight’s Premier League trip to Bolton.

Declan Kidney will name a team today ready to cast off Ireland’s bitter memories of a World Cup quarter-final exit by playing expansive rugby in their Six Nations opener against Wales on Sunday.

There is a strange sense of Groundhog Day about Ireland’s opening two fixtures in this season’s RBS Six Nations Championship.