Herculean effort needed at Hickstead

It wouldn’t come as a big surprise to find that Ireland show jumping manager Robert Splaine is putting the controversy over Denis Lynch behind him, and he would be forgiven for, briefly, taking his focus off the Olympics today, as he aims to engineer a get-out-of-jail performance in Hickstead.

Ireland lie last in the FEI Top League, six points behind second-last Belgium and eight behind Britain. Couple this with the fact today’s West Sussex fixture is the penultimate to next month’s Dublin finale and you realise that only a Herculean effort, allied with the gods conspiring against our rivals, can stave off possible relegation.

I say possible, because a major shake-up of the league is on the cards next year as a result of the Saudi Arabian sponsorship deal and it is anybody’s guess as to what will transpire.