49ers bid to cut Giants down to size

IN just his first year as an NFL coach, Jim Harbaugh has brought his San Francisco 49ers to the brink of a Super Bowl appearance.

Meanwhile, his brother John, just a year older, will be hoping to guide the Baltimore Ravens to a first AFC title in his fourth season and potentially an intriguing rematch with Jim on February 5.

But both teams have it all to do tomorrow night. The New York Giants are slight favourites to escape from the Bay Area with the NFC Championship (Candlestick Park, 11.30pm Irish time) while the Ravens face a daunting trip to the home of the New England Patriots in Foxborough (8pm, Irish time) with quarterback Tom Brady eyeing up a fifth AFC victory on the way to a possible fourth Super Bowl ring.

While a follow-up “Harbaugh Bowl” to the one which Baltimore comprehensively won at home to San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day would be an enticing storyline for the fortnight of coverage leading up to the big one tomorrow fortnight, a rematch of Super Bowl XLII between the Patriots and the Giants, which New York surprisingly won, four years ago has caught the imagination of fans in the north-east.

The Giants have won each of their four NFC Championship games and the last time they faced the 49ers at this stage was in 1991 when they denied the Joe Montana-led San Francisco a possible third straight Super Bowl, also at Candlestick Park. More recently, San Francisco beat New York in their regular season clash on November 13.

“I think it probably surprised a lot of people that the Giants and the 49ers are in the NFC championship game,” 49ers coach Harbaugh said this week.

Brady, meanwhile, is refusing to underestimate the defensive prowess of the Ravens who last won the Super Bowl 11 years ago, against the New York Giants. “They are the best team we’ve faced all year,” Brady said. “There’s no one that’s going to overlook a team like that. They’re physical, tough, they can cover. They’ve got some of the best players in the history of the NFL at their position, in Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis and Ed Reed and Haloti Ngata.”