Ireland draw Israel but Heimir Hallgrímsson is concentrating on ‘football matters’

It was only last November that the FAI passed a motion calling on Uefa to ban Israel from European club and international competitions. In light of that stance, then, Thursday’s draw for the Nations League would have left them sighing rather heavily - yes, Israel are in the Republic of Ireland’s group. Gavin Cummiskey was in Brussels for the draw, the fixtures for which were announced this morning, and heard from Heimir Hallgrímsson who was “determined to stick to football matters”, including indicating that he will sign a two-year contract extension with the FAI.

In rugby, Andy Farrell has named a much changed side for tomorrow’s Six Nations meeting with Italy, Gerry Thornley taking you through the selection and bringing you Farrell’s thoughts on the line-up. Fresh from their win over Scotland, Italy won’t be short of confidence, John O’Sullivan looking at the key areas where they will target Ireland.

The media are framing the Italian game as “doomsday” after that “brutal defeat to France in Paris,” says Conor Murray, but while he’s not papering over how poor that performance was, he believes that “the obituaries on Irish rugby are a tad premature”.

Jack Conan echoed that view earlier in the week when he said that the France game was an aberration, a one-off bad performance, but Johnny Watterson worries about the absence of what are usually the “defining qualities of this Irish team”: “conviction, intensity and intent.”

The under-20 side need to do some bouncing back too after their heavy defeat to France in their opening Six Nations game, John O’Sullivan previewing their game against Italy this evening.

In Gaelic games, Malachy Clerkin wonders why the Dublin conveyor belt of young talent has “gummed up”, their underage teams no longer “unearthing diamonds”. Gordon Manning previews this evening’s Fitzgibbon Cup final between the University of Limerick and Mary Immaculate College, and he talks to David Power who oversaw UL’s first ever Sigerson Cup triumph. And lest that didn’t keep Gordon busy enough, he also hears from Declan Hannon about the return of performance psychologist Caroline Currid to the Limerick backroom team.

Roy Keane and Lindsey Vonn pop up in Sonia O’Sullivan’s column today - after watching the film Saipan and taking in some of the Winter Olympics, it struck her how much the pair have in common - in the stubbornness and determination department.

Nathan Johns sends us a letter from Colombo, where he’s been covering Ireland’s struggles in the T20 World Cup, while Brian O’Connor looks back at the controversy around the case of jockey Philip Byrnes’s unseat from Redwood Queen at Wexford last May. It should, he says, “be the tipping point that propels Irish racing towards professional stewarding”.

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