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Ireland need to follow England’s 2003 example; The Champions League returns tonight

Morning Sports Briefing: Keep ahead of the game with ‘The Irish Times’ sports team

The Tottenham Hotspur team during a training session in Dortmund. Photograph: Maja Hitij/Getty Images
Tue Mar 05 2019 - 07:42

The first two of this year's Champions League quarter-finalists will be decided tonight, with Spurs looking well set to take one of those spots. Mauricio Pochettino's team carry a 3-0 lead into their last-16 second leg in Dortmund, and they'll know that they face a test of their professionalism and, moreover, their manager appears in need of a tonic. In the night's other fixture Real Madrid host Ajax who trail 2-1 on aggregate. Last night in the League of Ireland, Shamrock Rovers barely broke into a sweat in a 3-0 win over Finn Harps to go top of the Premier Division.

In his column this morning, Gerry Thornley explains that Ireland may need to follow England's 2003 example for this year's Rugby World Cup. The French team to play Ireland this weekend in the penultimate round of the Six Nations is expected to be announced this morning. Yesterday evening it was revealed that Wales' two most successful professional sides – Ospreys and Scarlets – are poised to merge for as soon as the start of next season.

The GAA yesterday confirmed that Sunday's postponed hurling league fixtures will be played this weekend, pushing the knockout stages back a week with the final now to coincide with the football league finals on the last weekend of the month. Former Dublin fullback Rory O'Carroll has returned to the capital from his lengthy sojourn in New Zealand - he flew back to Ireland over the weekend and is expected to return to club football and hurling with Kilmacud Crokes.

Meanwhile Rory McIlroy is in positive mood this week as he returns to the scene of his latest victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. That victory ended an 18-months winless drought on tour and, but rather than kick on and add to his career CV of titles, a year on, McIlroy returns to Arnie's course this week as the defending champion and without a win since. "I'm not frustrated," he insists, "because it seems like I can only do what I can do and I can only control me . . . it's just about staying patient, and hopefully one of these weeks it will fall my way."