RICHIE GRAY was thrilled to score the match-winning try in Glasgow’s Heineken Cup Pool 3 defeat of Bath at the end of a week in which he announced he is to leave the Warriors.

MORE than 3,000 police and soldiers backed by armoured personnel carriers raced into Brazil’s biggest slum, quickly gaining control of a shantytown ruled for decades by a heavily-armed drug gang.

PERCEPTIONS can really mess with the head sometimes.

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COMING up to two years on from the hand that rocked the world, and there’s still no getting away from it.

IRELAND winger Andrew Trimble is under no illusions as to Ulster’s task this afternoon when they face French giants Clermont Auvergne in their opening Heineken Cup gambit at Ravenhill (3.40).

MON Parrain is all the rage for this afternoon's Paddy Power Gold Cup Chase at Cheltenham and it's very easy to see why.

A YEAR ago last weekend, tremors of excitement reverberated through America’s midwest.

MIKE TINDALL’S Test career appears to be over after his off-field behaviour during the World Cup resulted in him being kicked out of England’s elite squad and fined £25,000 (€29,000) by the England RFU.

MUNSTER’S Denis Hurley could have been a disciple of Jack Charlton in the days when the football coach decreed his Republic of Ireland players used a simple “put ‘em under pressure” tactic to deal with all opposition.

IT is usually deep into January before Heineken Cup coaches throw their cards on the table and prepare to stand or fall by their decisions but this evening’s opener at home to Northampton could prove to be a watershed moment for Munster and Tony McGahan.

EVEN all these years later, with Ireland just one game away from qualifying for a major tournament, Eoin Hand sometimes thinks about just how close he was to qualifying for Spain 82, only for that “cheat” of a Portuguese referee in Brussels.

IAN McGEECHAN believes Leinster are the team to beat in this season’s Heineken Cup and says Jonny Sexton now has the ideal mix of talent and experience to take Europe by storm once again.

A GAME of firsts, this one.

IT WOULD have taken every last man in Declan Kidney’s squad a good week or two to flush the disappointment of New Zealand from their systems but it took Eoin Reddan a bit longer than the rest.

Yes says Donal Lenihan

TO borrow from the brewery giant’s oft-quoted advertising slogan, if the Heineken Cup refreshes places that others can’t reach, then the French could do with a couple of brews at the moment.

WHEN I say ‘walkies’ to my old dog, she stretches, resettles her limbs and raises her eyelids for a moment to shoot me a look, which says ‘surely, surely to god you’re joking?’

IT may be a long-shot, but Conor Swail feels he is justified in having one eye on the two individual Olympic places up for grabs after placing second with Lansdowne in the World Cup contest in Toronto, Canada, on Wednesday night.

REFEREES have been told to focus on five areas during the Heineken and Amlin Challenge Cup campaigns this season by the ERC.