Ciara Mageean admits that it “feels kind of crass” to compare your down days in sport to life’s bigger losses, but still, so devastated was she when injury forced her to pull out of the summer’s Olympic Games, she was left “grieving”. “I just felt numb. It wasn’t even sadness, it was just emptiness,” she tells Malachy Clerkin. It was, then, a year of extreme highs and lows, Mageean having won gold at the European Championships in June. “Sport is a little microcosm of life,” she says. “You experience all the emotions other people get throughout their lives all in one little season.”
Limerick hurling and Dublin football were both left feeling a bit numb this week with the news that the former’s goalkeeper Nickie Quaid had suffered a cruciate knee ligament injury, and the latter’s midfielder Brian Fenton had retired. “For two incredibly successful teams, we’re about to see what irreplaceable really looks like,” writes Ciarán Murphy.
Gordon Manning, meanwhile, spoke to Derry midfielder Brendan Rogers who believes that the county’s former manager Rory Gallagher will be back in the intercounty game soon enough, despite allegations of domestic abuse made by his former wife Nicola.
In rugby, Gerry Thornley brings news that Leo Cullen has his sights set on coaching Ireland one day, as confirmed by Leinster CEO Shane Nolan. For now, though, Andy Farrell is the chief and he’s set to give debuts to Leinster hooker Gus McCarthy and Ulster backrower Cormac Izuchukwu against Fiji on Saturday.
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Jamie Osborne also looks set to start after Farrell described his cameo against Argentina as “immense”. John O’Sullivan talks to the versatile 23-year-old who gives the manager options “at either fullback, both centre positions, and even wing”.
A busy John also takes a look at Ireland’s aerial game ahead of that meeting with Fiji, something that “is definitely a work-on, to use a colloquial rugby phrase”. “In the defeat to New Zealand, the bald statistic is that Andy Farrell’s side lost all seven aerial duels that were contested.”
Over in America, Dave Hannigan has been keeping an eye on the phenomenon that is Topgolf – a fun, weirdly cool but ludicrously expensive version of the game that takes place in enormous triple-decked driving ranges and offers “a raucous atmosphere more akin to a nightclub than a country club”. Add in Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s high-tech indoor golf league that will be televised live in January and Augusta National’s azaleas “must be wilting at the heresy of it all”.
TV Watch: Séamus Power is in action at the RSM Classic in Georgia, the last of the FedEx Cup Fall Series events (Sky Sports Golf, 1pm-8pm), while Leona Maguire is in a star-studded field for the CME Globe LPGA Tour Championship (Sky Sports Golf, 8pm-10pm), the end-of-season tournament that is limited to the leading 60 available players on the order of merit. There’s a decidedly tasty prize for the winner: €3.78 million.
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