Time to put preservation order on the drop goal

Jack Carty stands alone among Irish goalkickers this season with not even Johnny Sexton able to keep him company.

Connacht’s newly-capped Dubliner has been out on his own for the last six months by virtue of something unusual in Swansea last autumn. He dropped a goal and if that doesn’t sound much of a deal, it remains one more than Leinster, Munster and Ulster have managed all season between them, Europe included.