In a boost for Ireland in advance of next month’s Six Nations opener, Johnny Sexton is back in training with Leinster following a head clash with Connacht’s Jarrad Butler and medical procedure two weeks ago. Leinster attack coach Andrew Goodman explains: “he’s been involved in everything apart from the contact aspect of the game, so he’ll build that over the next couple of weeks and I’m sure he’ll be great to go.” Goodman is also backing Ross Byrne – who will likely start Leinster’s Champions Cup clash against Racing 92 this weekend – to be included as a backup outhalf in Andy Farrell’s squad. In his column this morning, Gerry Thornley writes that with Australia rehiring Eddie Jones, the World Cup just got even more interesting: “Jones’s appointment may well, in the short-term anyway, give the Wallabies and rugby in Australia a boost. Either way, he will soon be centre stage again and, come the World Cup, will be hogging the limelight – a place where he seems eminently content with himself.”
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has denied being too loyal to some of his players in advance of tonight’s FA Cup third round replay against Wolves at Molineux. Liverpool’s horrid start to the Premier League season is “much more complex” than that claims Klopp, who confirmed there would be changes at the end of the campaign, and that he would not be going anywhere. The English Professional Footballers’ Association has made clear “nothing that happens on the pitch justifies a spectator attacking a player” after Aaron Ramsdale was kicked at the end of Sunday’s north London derby.
Over a year after the landmark Freddy Tylicki case there is still no indemnity insurance cover in place for Ireland’s jockeys. Tylicki succeeded in a £6 million case for damages against another Irish rider Graham Gibbons that concluded in a London High Court in late 2021. Brian O’Connor also reports that Energumene is an odds-on favourite to go one better than last year in Saturday’s Grade One LK Bennet Clarence House Chase at Ascot. He is one of just three horses left in the valuable contest after Monday’s latest confirmation stage with firms going 4-7 about the Irish hope getting the better of his principal opponent Edwardstone.
Meanwhile. Leona Maguire is looking for hot start to the new LPGA season at the Tournament of Champions this week. Philip Reid writes, “if proof were needed of Maguire’s ever upward trending status on the LPGA Tour, it is that the 28-year-old Co Cavan golfer is in the limited-field at Lake Nona in Orlando, Florida”.
