By Caroline O’Doherty

JONNY WILKINSON andRonan O’Gara have a lot incommon, having been the mainstays of their respective national sides for the last decade before finding themselves under threat of being consigned to history by younger, more extrovert fly-halves.

SPAIN coach Vicente del Bosque heads into his team’s opening Group H game today against Switzerland believing South Africa’s tournament can still be remembered as the best World Cup of all time.

FORMER France midfielder Zinedine Zidane has re-ignited the row over Thierry Henry’s controversial handball in the World Cup play-off against Ireland by claiming that FIFA was right not to arrange a replay of the game.

Jacob Stockdale is moving on from a disappointing World Cup, his gaze firmly fixed on a new era for Irish rugby and, he hopes, a clean slate under head coach Andy Farrell.

Former UEFA president Michel Platini has been detained for questioning by French police over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

World Cup-winning former England coach Clive Woodward is “unconvinced” by Rob Andrew’s ability to lead the national side out of the doldrums.

The day after hosts Australia got the defence of their World Cup crown off to a winning start, the side favoured by bookies to dethrone them, New Zealand, launched their own campaign against Italy in Melbourne.

Irish kickboxer Deirdre Begley has targeted a podium finish at this weekend’s world championships in Dublin. It is the first time the competition is in Ireland and Begley, who came third in the World Cup in June, would love to secure a medal in front of a home crowd.

Great Britain’s new Davis Cup captain John Lloyd backed Andy Murray to carry his country into the tournament’s elite world group, single-handedly if he has to.

FIFA has taken the dramatic step of publishing a controversial internal report into the 2018 and 2022 World Cup bidding process after it was leaked to a German newspaper this week.

Despite the disappointment of last Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final exit to New Zealand, Peter O’Mahony insists Joe Schmidt vacates his role as Ireland head coach with considerable credit in the bank.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino is assessing nine offers from companies seeking to buy the commercial and broadcasting rights for a new club competition he hopes will become the most lucrative in world football, usurping Europe’s Champions League.

Victor Wanyama, the man who shot to fame when he scored to help Celtic beat Barcelona in the Champions League this season, is predicting a feast of football in South Africa as the African Nations Cup gets underway today — and another chance for an underdog to make an impact.

Ireland’s men begin their 2018 World Cup qualification journey with a new-look panel charged with winning World League 2 in Belfast over the coming week.