The full extent of the ankle injury suffered by Joey Carbery against Italy on Saturday remains unclear, with the Irish management awaiting further tests prior to clarifying the outhalf's wellbeing today. In his column this morning, Gerry Thornley explains why, uneasy lies New Zealand's World Cup crown: "The feeling that this year's World Cup is undoubtedly the most openly competitive in yonks, perhaps ever, was strengthened by the events of the weekend. Not alone have almost all of the chasing peleton made strides in recent times, but the back-to-back world champions New Zealand have come back to them."
Kevin McStay's weekly column (Subscriber Only) is addressing Mayo's many mistakes against Dublin: "Dublin got 26 shots away and Mayo got 24 shots. Again, no great disparity. But of those totals, Dublin were successful with 17 and Mayo just 11. It was 65 per cent against 46 per cent in terms of accuracy. And 65 is quite low by Dublin standards: they are often in the high 70s or low 80s." Ahead of Sunday's All-Ireland hurling final, Sean Moran profiles Kilkenny goalkeeper Eoin Murphy, a jack of all trades and master of one who by consensus is the best goalkeeper in hurling: "An unusual aspect of Murphy's achievements is that he has won highest honours playing in completely different positions: as goalkeeper with Kilkenny, as a forward with club Glenmore in their All-Ireland junior club victory, and as a centre back in the 2014 Fitzgibbon Cup final when captain of Waterford IT."
The cycling boom - how popular is it and is it expensive? Ruaidhrí Croke is writing in the Pay for Play pages this morning: "While plenty of column inches and webpages have been used to proclaim cycling as the new hobby for business executives to cut deals with a bike and some country roads replacing a set of clubs and a golf course, there are in fact plenty of comparisons to be drawn between the two sports." You can read that insightful piece in full here.
Meanwhile, Dundalk will be looking to invoke the spirit of 2016 when they meet Slovan Bratislava in their Europa League third qualifying round tie at Tallaght Stadium on Wednesday evening. They are 1-0 down after the first leg, and it's just over three years to the day since the Lilywhites overturned a one-goal deficit against Bate Borisov.
