Analysing the sports grant system; Matt Williams on coaching conformity

The dishing out of governmental sports grants has always been a bone of contention, particularly for those who feel hard done by when the decisions are made each year but this year's results do look quite skewed in a number of ways. This morning Aonghus Ó Maicín looks at the breakdown and asks whether Dublin is punching above its weight. "Of the 29 local projects receiving €100,00 or more per the latest round of allocations, 28 projects were located in the capital. When regional projects are included, Dublin still received 32 of the 41 grants within the same bracket," he writes.

Moving on to rugby and Matt Williams writes in his column this morning that there is a stifling lack original thinking among rugby coaches at the moment which is leading to a lot of uniform conformity. However, he writes that in recruiting Graham Rowntree and Stephen Larkham, Munster are at least attempting to commit to change. Since his departure from Italy after the Rugby World Cup there has been much speculation about where the next job will take Conor O'Shea with a lot of fingers pointing towards the RFU. While he wouldn't confirm or deny that that was the case yesterday, he told Johnny Watterson that towards the end of his Italy tenure he had lost his "investment" a little.

In soccer there was a harsh lesson for Manchester United's youngsters in Astana last night as they surrendered a one goal lead to lose 2-1 to the Kazakh side. United still need just a draw against AZ Alkmaar on the final matchday to top their group with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer expected to return to a much more familair and experienced team for Sunday's visit of Aston Villa. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on Arsenal's Unai Emery as he saw his side lose 2-1 to Eintracht Frankfurt at a half-empty Emirates Stadium last night while Matt Doherty netted in Portugal to help Wolves into the last 32. Tomorrow the draw for the finals of next summer's European Championships will take place and Ireland will be in it, albeit with an asterisk ahead of the playoffs in March. The draw will take place at 5pm Irish time and you can follow all of the action on The Irish Times liveblog but this morning James McDermott writes that the long and tedious process of the qualification system has almost diminished it slightly.

In GAA, John Meyler yesterday confirmed that his days in inter-county management are over as he plans to take a step back. Meanwhile, in cycling, further details have emerged about the new-look Rás Tailteann which has lost UCI status for next year while Ian O'Riordan writes that Ciara Mageean was a fitting winner of the Athlete of the Year title, presented in Dublin on Thursday.