Head injury assessments have been undermined
First to rugby this morning and Gerry Thornley writes in his column that head injury assessments have been undermined in the game – something that is shown through the investigation into how Munster handled Conor Murray's injury on Saturday.
“If it is decided that Munster wrongly returned Murray to the field of play after their scrumhalf passed his pitchside HIA, then evidently the HIA itself failed,” he writes.
Lancaster says Sexton was targeted
On a similar subject, Stuart Lancaster yesterday spoke of how he feels that Johnny Sexton was targeted by Montpellier, but not in a malicious way. Lancaster says he has never seen a team go out to deliberately injure a player in all his time in rugby.
What’s gone wrong with City?
On to soccer and the fallout from Pep Guardiola's Manchester City side going down 4-0 to Everton continues. Guardiola has struggled since coming in to English football while also bemoaning how different the game is compared to Spain and Germany. Jamie Jackson asks what has gone wrong with the Manchester City project.
Pogba able to cope with the emojional pressure
Meanwhile, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has backed Manchester United team-mate Paul Pogba to cope with the "24-hour pressure" exerted on him - much of which it must be said is his own doing. #Pogba etc...
McIlroy pulls out of Abu Dhabi
In golf there was disappointing news last night as Rory McIlroy announced that he would have to pull out of this week’s Abu Dhabi Championship with a rib injury. No timeframe was put on how long McIlroy will be out of the game with a stress fracture, although his next scheduled tournament is the Dubai Desert Classic in three weeks’ time.
If McIlroy had won the first tournament of the desert swing – the field of which includes Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson and Rickie Fowler – he would have regained his world number one spot.
Meanwhile, Roddy Carr recalls one of golf's most influential characters - John Jacobs - who died last week, aged 91.
Hickey can still sit on OCI council
It can be difficult at the best of times to keep up with all of the ins and outs of the OCI, but this morning Ian O'Riordan reports that former president Pat Hickey will still be entitled to both a vote and seat on the new executive committee no matter what transpires at next month's extraordinary general meeting in Dublin.
Williams safely through
And finally, Serena Williams safely advanced to the second round of the Australian Open overnight with a straight sets win over Belinda Bencic.
What to watch out for
Tennis
Eurosport, midnight-3.15pm: Day 2 Australian Open.
Snooker
BBC 2, 1pm-5pm, Eurosport 2, 1pm-4pm, 6pm-10pm: Masters Day 3 from London.
Soccer
Eurosport 1 from 3.45pm African Cup of Nations: (4.00) Ghana v Uganda, (7.00) Mali v Egypt.
BBC 1 from 8pm: (8.05) FA Cup replay: Lincoln City v Ipswich Town.
