Andy Farrell has some decisions to make this afternoon when he names his Ireland team to face Italy on Sunday. In what is likely to be the head coach's trickiest selection in this year's Six Nations, Farrell is weighing up the cases for recalling Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw and James Lowe, while almost certainly affording Dan Sheehan his first Test start at hooker and shaking up the matchday 23 in other areas, writes Gerry Thornley. "Affording Joey Carbery back-to-back starts would be the most delicate call of all but it is something that the Irish coaches have apparently been considering," he writes. On that same subject, Brian O'Driscoll was speaking yesterday about how this match gives Farrell a chance to experiment but, while he would like to see Carbery get more game-time, he's not sure about this weekend. "We just have to be mindful that we give enough game-time to our perceived second-string players and make sure that they are equipped and ready to go with the necessary game experience to take on World Cup matches."
Moving to golf and Séamus Power tells Philip Reid today that his journey to the current top-50 in the world and a potential ticket to this year's Masters has been far from straightforward. The West Waterford man laboured for years on the mini-tours in the US, watching his bank balance plummeting every week. In the end it was all worth it and those tough days have shaped him into the player he is today. "Even when I won on (the PGA) tour, I don't think I felt as good as I did in 2012 when I won 15 grand and the weight of the world was off your shoulder and I felt like I was a millionaire. It was the greatest thing ever," he said yesterday. Meanwhile, Shane Lowry opened with a level par round of 70 at the Honda Classic in Florida last night where Kurt Kitayama leads on six under. Ahead of the event, Lowry spoke about the Saudi-backed breakaway league which has dominated the headlines in golf recently with the Offalyman saying he was never really interested in signing. While the declarations of loyalty to the PGA Tour from the vast majority of the world's top players looks to have knocked the potential breakaway back significantly, Greg Norman - who heads the venture - wrote in an open letter on Thursday that "this is not the end".
Moving on and, in his column this morning, Johnny Watterson writes that swimming has become divided over the presence of transgender athletes with Lia Thomas polarising opinion on the US college circuit. "It is fair to say that because of the inclusion of Thomas in college swimming, athletes in the US are currently confused and deeply unhappy. Swimming is certainly divided over her presence," he writes. In other news, Vitali Klitschko - former world heavyweight champion and current mayor of Kyiv - has vowed to take up arms alongside his brother Wladimir in Ukraine's fight against the Russian invasion of their country.
To soccer and Arsenal staged a dramatic late comeback to beat Wolves in the Premier League last night, thanks to a last-gasp Jose Sa own goal at the Emirates. Mikel Arteta's side now sit just one point behind Manchester United in fifth place with two games in hand. In the Europa League, Barcelona's revival continued with a victory over Napoli while Celtic were dumped out of the Europa Conference League by Bodo/Glimt.
In GAA, former Limerick hurler Paul Browne says that "realistically Limerick are probably beyond worrying about league games," but he believes that his old teammates will be eager to avoid losing three-in-a-row when they face Cork on Sunday.
