PHILIP REID, holds the back page...

Sorensen serves up timely reminder

FAIR PLAY to Louk Sorensen for, firstly, emerging from qualifying to play in the Australian Open and, secondly, on winning his first-round match. It was a great achievement; and that, in a way, says all we need to know about where Irish tennis stands.

In golf, we’ve got two players – Pádraig Harrington and Rory McIlroy – in the world’s top-10: one of them, Harrington, has three Majors to his CV; the other, McIlroy, is the hottest young golfer on the planet and the timing of his move to play on the US Tour this season seems even better timed given the fall-out from Tiger Woods’s indiscretions.

In horse racing, there’s a string of jockeys – national hunt and flat – who are the equal of any to be found anywhere in the world.

Ruby Walsh, Tony McCoy, Johnny Murtagh, Barry Geraghty, Kieran Fallon . . . the list goes on and on and on.

In rugby, Brian O’Driscoll – voted the world’s best rugby player of the past decade by Rugby World – leads a golden generation of players that has made Ireland a genuine force in the sport.

In tennis, though, we are still waiting for a truly world-class player to emerge from Ireland.

Real home from home at the Madejski

THE ODDS are stacked against London Irish making it through to the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, despite having home advantage against the reigning champions Leinster in today’s match at Twickenham.

And, of course, I’ll be hoping Leinster don’t slip-up in the same way as London Irish did against the Scarlets last Sunday when they took their foot off the pedal and failed to finish the job, perhaps with an eye already being cast ahead to the visit of BOD Co. Yet, there’s a small part of me that’s sorry that the Exiles most likely won’t get a foot into the knockout stages.

I’ve been to the Madejski Stadium to see London Irish play – on the generous invite of former Irish international Mike Gibson, who played for Trinity, Lansdowne and Cork Con before moving to London where he proved to be a great servant on the field, off the field in arranging club sponsorship and on the golf course as captain to the London Irish Golf Society – and there is an unmistakable Irishness about the place.

From having copies of The Irish Times available at the ground’s entrance, to the sound of Irish music in the bar deep down in the bowels of the stand after the final whistle is blown . . . let’s hope their time will come, as Johnny Cash might say, down the line!