Andy Farrell was having none of it when it was suggested to him after Ireland’s defeat in Twickenham that there was now a bit of an anti-climactic feel to next Saturday’s meeting with Scotland in Dublin, even when the prize for an Irish win will be back-to-back Six Nations titles. “Anti-climax? How many times have we won the Six Nations,” he asked. “Everyone would love to be in our position.” He was, of course, right. “It shouldn’t have been such a hard sell,” writes Gerry Thornley, “but it was.” After all, “history had beckoned in the shape of historic back-to-back Grand Slams”.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom, mind, Josh van der Flier’s “indefatigable” performance, which John O’Sullivan analyses, was a highlight, while Johnny Watterson handed out nines to two other Irish players in his ratings. But there will, no doubt, be some questioning from “the Monday morning quarterbacks” of Farrell’s 6-2 split on the bench, as Johnny points out in his ‘Five things we learned from Ireland’s defeat’. Nathan Johns, meanwhile, looks at two incidents in the game that appeared to escape the officials’ notice, both involving Ellis Genge – in one he was the saint, in the other the sinner... maybe.
In Gaelic games, Seán Moran rounds up a weekend that will go a long way towards determining the seven counties that will make up next year’s Division 1A of the hurling league, among them Clare who he saw beat Kilkenny with a late burst in their game in Cusack Park. Denis Walsh was in Páirc Uí Chaoimh to witness Limerick somehow only beat Tipperary by a point, while Gordon Manning saw Wexford seal their place in next year’s top flight with a win over Waterford.
The battle for the English Premier League title tightened further at the weekend with Arsenal’s win over Brentford and the draw between Liverpool and Manchester City at Anfield. It might well have been a win for the home side, though, if referee Michael Oliver had awarded them a penalty after Jérémy Doku kicked Alexis MacAllister in the chest in the last minute. “It will surely go down as one of the worst refereeing decisions of the season,” writes Ken Early.
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Meanwhile, Cheltenham gets under way tomorrow, Brian O’Connor bringing news that Willie Mullins has declared 20 runners for the opening programme – that’s almost 22 per cent of the runners. “In some quarters there is an undeniable boredom with Mullins’s relentless brilliance,” writes Denis Walsh, but it’s hardly his fault that he’s a “genius”.
And in golf, Philip Reid reports on Shane Lowry’s third place finish at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando, the Offaly man left having to “doff his cap to world number one Scottie Scheffler who produced a masterclass in striding to victory”. There was some consolation for Lowry, though, in the shape of a cheque for $1.4 million.
TV Watch: If you can bear to watch, RTÉ2′s Against the Head wraps up the weekend’s Six Nations action (8.0), and TG4 does the same for the weekend’s GAA league games (8.0). And at the same time, Chelsea and Newcastle kick off in their Premier League meeting (Sky Sports).
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