Inside Track: A week of sport to whet anybody's appetite
Jonathan Sexton of Ireland during the Guinness Six Nations Rugby Championship match between Scotland and Ireland at BT Murrayfield Stadium. (Picture: Sportsfile)
Sports followers from around these parts have lots to look forward to over the next few days. Two of four mouth-watering fixtures have a local flavour – the others are of international prominence.
The Cheltenham festival has been running since Tuesday and ends later today, and then comes the mother of all international matches, Ireland going for everything the game of rugby has to offer in this part of the world, taking on England at The Aviva.
Enough there to satisfy the most demanding of appetites, but offer the choice to locals, tickets to these fixtures, or the League of Ireland match at Drogheda last night and the Louth senior footballers’ meeting with Cork at Ardee on Sunday, and you might be told, ‘we’ll stay at home.’
Of course it’s possible to take in all of the action, even for those who are planning to stay put. The racing and rugby are on television, and it’s for certain local radio will be at Ardee.
It’s odds-against, however, RTE cameras being present for Louth’s match. They haven’t taken in any of the Reds’ five league matches to date, and if that’s because of the long-running dispute they have with Mickey Harte, it’s penalising an innocent party.
Louth supporters have had no part to play in the differences between the Louth manager and the national broadcaster, and therefore shouldn’t be deprived of seeing their side on screen.
The Louth match will fill the Pairc Mhuire to a capacity ordained by the health and safety people, but won’t go anywhere near to packing the enclosures.
Hundreds more would want to see the all-ticket match, but won’t be able to because of regulations. It’s something like this that makes the opening of the new stadium in Dundalk a priority.
The last time Inside Track visited Oriel Park, so to speak, was at the tail end of last season. Dundalk had finished the league on a high to take third behind Shamrock Rovers and Derry City, and so qualify for Europe.
Honeysuckle, the apple of Irish racegoers’ eyes over the past few years, was listed here last week as a runner in the Champion Hurdle.
Though she figured in the betting for Tuesday's feature, Rachel Blackmore’s mount instead went for the Mares’ Hurdle. Having come home in front for the fourth time at the Festival, the reception she’s got was something akin to what another mare, Dawn Run, was afforded when she added the Gold Cup to her Champions Hurdle win.
Last weekends Six-Nations results suggest Ireland will have it easy when they face up to England on Saturday in the final round.
The day after the Red Rose wilted in the face of a fierce French onslaught, beaten by a record 43 points, Ireland produced another solid performance in the 22-7 defeat of Scotland at Murrayfield, and now are in line for Championship, Triple Crown and, most important, Grand Slam glory.
But, wait, it’s not only us on this side of the pond who relish a fixture like this. It gets English blood up as well, and wouldn’t the Sassanachs love it more than ever if they were to end Irish hopes.
It would be a major surprise, however, if the points were to leave Dublin. Ireland have done all head coach, Andy Farrell, has asked of them, not only in this championship, but also in the Autumn Tests, and could there be a better setting for that great warrior, Jonathon Sexton, to become Ireland’s record points-scorer.
A conversion or penalty would edge him past one of yesterday’s greats, Ronan O’Gara, while victory would give Ireland a fourth Grand Slam.
