Tony Cascarino has described the team as “By a country mile the worst Ireland team in years.” Leaving aside the headline hyperbole, it did feel like it watching the Republic of Ireland lose at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night.
Later this morning we’ll take a look at why, despite the result, it is right to stick with Stephen Kenny as manager.
Kenny himself used the word disappointing ten times in a difficult interview with RTÉ’s Tony O’Donoghue straight after the game. Then the FAI held a media conference after its EGM on Sunday where the technicalities of what had been agreed with regard to governance got short shift amide calls on votes of confidence. We will cover both.
Northern Ireland also recorded a second defeat of this window, going down 2-1 to the United States at Windsor Park.
This is also the week when we will learn the fate of kids playing sport, the return of some outdoor activity and perhaps of inter-county GAA training. Sporting bodies are on tenterhooks as are most other sectors, but we are the ones being spoken of with a little greater degree of hope.
Malachy Clerkin is writing today about Golfmageddon and decrying the fact that courses have been shut for 208 days in the last year.
Finn Harps and Longford Town sit atop the SSE Airtricity League after the second weekend of action. Five games played between the top three of last season, Shamrock Rovers, Bohemians and Dundalk and not a win yet. It could make for the most open campaign in a long time.
The Women’s National League got underway as well over the weekend and gets mixed coverage across the national mainstream media.
Leinster showed their dominance on Saturday evening with a 16-6 win over Munster and a fourth title in a row for the Guinness PRO14 Champions.
The Irish Times reports on a drain of coaches from rugby including the loss of Ulster and Ireland U20 coach Kieran Campbell heading for the heady heights of Ealing Trailfinders.
The Irish Independent has an interesting comparison of the 1981 and 2020 All Ireland Football Finals. Technically the sport has advanced beyond recognition but in terms of excitement, there were 123 turnovers 40 years ago Vs 36 when Dublin beat Mayo and 54 shots ve 48.
In the middle east, Lewis Hamilton won a dramatic first Grand Prix of the season by just over one second from Max Verstappen and Kildare jockey David Egan added another major race win aboard Saudi Cup winner Mishrif in the Dubai Sheema Classic on the World Cup card.
On Sport for Business this morning we will have the stories mentioned above as well as an Irish produced video with an English tennis star in our Daily Video slot, the Sue Anstiss session from last week’s Sport for Business Women in Sport column, the launch of a Return to Sport Conference we will host at the end of April, the first results of our new media Monitor covering March, our weekly eSports column with news from around that world and our weekly look at some of the jobs currently looking to be filled in the sporting world.
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