Shane Mcgrath

It was incredible – in more than one sense of that much-deployed word. But what Ruth Chepngetich did in Chicago a week ago left the world of athletics looking on in disbelief.

And his name doesn't feature. A series of events where Johnny Sexton's sometime mentoring role hardens into a much broader and more permanent arrangement have

The gladiator was loving it. It took 13 minutes for the ill-feeling between these teams to break the surface.

After months of luxuriating in the achievement of Olympic gold, Daniel Wiffen was done with the conventional.

A team is taking shape. That's a team in the old-fashioned sense of a functional, effective unit reflective of the available talent – and not a philosophical statement doggedly, vainly repeated.

There's a strong argument that, with half of their fixtures in this window completed, Andy Farrell's team have sat their sternest exams - and that's with

Joe Schmidt uses the word ‘comfortable' to describe his return to Ireland. The Australia team are based in a well-appointed hotel deep in south Dublin rugby country for the week.

Of course money matters – but gumption does, too. And the lesson on this night of bad weather, some awful rugby and a rousing Leinster redemption, is that gumption can be produced at home as well as imported at great cost.

They had been warned. Ronan O'Gara had used his newspaper column yesterday morning to predict the type of challenge Castres brought to Stade Pierre-Fabre last night.

Counting the physical cost is the brutal but straightforward part of the Munster post-mortem following Friday night's defeat in Castres.