Shane Mcgrath

Discontent with Kevin McStay's Mayo regime was aired at a fraught county board meeting on Wednesday night.

Heimir Hallgrimsson admits he's been taken aback by the level of interest in the national team – but he is intent on sticking to his trusted methods as he tries to lift a floundering force this week.

Candour isn't a common feature of sit-downs with leading coaches in any code in these times.

Fifty three weeks ago this weekend, Keith Andrews spoke for the final time in his capacity as assistant to Stephen Kenny with the national team.

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