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Mary Hannigan: Twickenham will not faze Farrell’s Ireland side

Blitz defence, who came up with it?; Are Enhanced Games the future? Women’s League of Ireland gets underway

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell brings his side to face England at Twickenham on Saturday afternoon. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Fri Mar 8 2024 - 12:10

For most Irish rugby supporters, there is, writes Gerry Thornley, “no better place to win and no worse place to lose than Twickenham”, and it is to there Andy Farrell and his men head on Saturday afternoon with the aim of keeping their back-to-back Grand Slam hopes alive. Embracing the atmosphere will, says Farrell, be part of the task. “If you get off the bus at Twickenham and you’re walking through the fans and you’re shivering in a bad way, then that’s not a good way to be, is it?” Certainly not. But there should be a spring in the step of his charges, Gerry noting that in the last two years, they’ve “visited and conquered” Twickenham, the Forsyth Barr Stadium, the Sky Stadium, the Principality Stadium, Stadio Olimpico, Murrayfield and the Stade Vélodrome. “Nowhere,” he reckons, “seems to particularly faze Farrell’s team any more”.

After the victory over Wales, Farrell insisted that his players would be well-equipped to deal with the threat of England’s new blitz defence, but who first came up with the idea? Nathan Johns does some detective work. And John O’Sullivan looks ahead to the Under-20 meeting of England and Ireland this evening, the power of the English scrum the biggest threat to Ireland’s hopes of keeping alive their dreams of a third Grand Slam in a row.

Johnny Watterson, meanwhile, has “a feeling of queasiness” when he writes about The Enhanced Games, an event scheduled for 2025 where athletes will not be subject to drug testing. They will be, of course, in Paris this summer, and that’s where Ciara Mageean’s focus now is, Ian O’Riordan talking to the Portaferry woman about how her preparations are shaping up having suffered a tweaked hamstring during a Christmas park run. That ruled her out of last weekend’s World Indoor Championships in Glasgow which Sonia O’Sullivan reflects on in her column.

In soccer, Gavin Cummiskey brings news of the Irish women’s team’s Aviva meetings with England and Sweden in the forthcoming Euro 2025 qualification campaign, and also previews the weekend’s League of Ireland games. And we take a look at the runners and riders in the women’s Premier Division this season, that campaign getting under way tomorrow.

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In Gaelic games, Seán Moran takes us through the recent history of Tipperary v Limerick hurling encounters ahead of their meeting in the league tomorrow, while Gordon Manning reports on the impact of the two experimental rules trialled in third-level football last year.

And in horse racing, Brian O’Connor has a feeling that the Cheltenham Festival “is turning into a victim of its own success”, largely due to the Jockey Club’s decision “to milk the festival’s commercial value for all it is worth”. Anticipation levels, he writes, “appear less Hi-Ho and more Ho-Hum”.

TV Watch: Sky Sports Golf has round two of the Arnold Palmer Invitational today (12.30pm-11pm), in to which Shane Lowry takes a one-shot lead, while their F1 channel will be following practice and qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix (from 1.10pm). And this evening Ireland meet England in the under-20 Six Nations (RTÉ 2, 7.15pm).

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