“After the storm, here come the winds of change,” writes Gordon Manning in his “everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask” guide to the Gaelic football rule changes you will see for the first time in inter-county games this weekend. It is, he says, “a seminal moment” for the sport, “the next few weeks will define how present and future generations play the game”. The bad news, though, for “every free-taker’s birthright to sneak a few metres” is that vanishing foam will be used by referees so they behave themselves.
Gordon also has a county-by-county guide to this season’s Division One and has a notion that Tyrone might have a happy time of it having finished fifth last time around.
While coming to terms with the rule changes, Dublin manager Dessie Farrell also has to figure out how to fill the enormous void left by the retirements of Brian Fenton and James McCarthy, Paul Keane going through his options in midfield, among them Cuala pair Peadar Ó Cofaigh Byrne and Peter Duffy.
And what is this “GAA catfish” story that’s been in the news in recent weeks? Scores of people, including GAA players, individuals in the entertainment industry and various Irish public figures, have been targeted by someone posing as someone else online. Paul Colgan explains all.
Paul asks “what are the responsibilities of the large social media companies whose platforms enable this behaviour?”, Johnny Watterson wondering the same in light of the increasingly toxic nature of X these days, not least for sports people. It is, he says, a “dangerous place” for them to inhabit.
In rugby, Gerry Thornley reckons that the return for France of Antoine Dupont, after he missed all of the last campaign due to his ultimately successful pursuit of Olympic glory, makes them formidable favourites for this year’s Six Nations. And Nathan Johns has news that Chris Busby is set to continue refereeing in the United Rugby Championship, despite recent reports that he was about to retire.
And Brian O’Connor writes about the renewed pep in British racing’s step just over six weeks away from the Cheltenham Festival. “It isn’t the entire cross-channel sector that’s feeling revived, so much as Nicky Henderson,” he says, “the veteran Englishman almost single-handedly leading the counter-offensive against Irish domination.”
TV Watch: Sky Sports Golf continues its coverage of the Ras Al Khaimah Open in the UAE (8.30am-1.30pm) and the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego (5pm-1am). Connacht’s trip to Glasgow in the URC, which had been due to take place this evening, has been postponed to Sunday (TG4 and Premier Sports 1, 3.30pm).
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