If it will take Rory McIlroy a while to recover from that heartbreaker of a conclusion to the US Open last Sunday, it will probably take Ciarán Murphy some time too after watching it. “I can’t remember a feeling like the one I had on Sunday night,” he writes, “it was a particularly cruel example of the sheer, cut-throat brutality of sport”. And there’ll be further examples from this weekend on, he forecasts, now that “we are getting down to winning time in the GAA”. “The winner stays on, the loser goes home, it’s that binary again.” Can Louth stay on and send Cork home? Gordon Manning looks at the Wee County’s chances of progressing to the quarter-finals of the football championship when they meet Cork in Monaghan on Sunday. They beat them in the league this season, but not since the 1957 All Ireland final have they got the better of them in the championship.
Over in Germany, Ken Early saw the hosts become the first side to confirm their qualification for the second round by beating Hungary 2-0 in Stuttgart. Toni Kroos’ performance – “once again the Madrid maestro ran the show” – has Ken thinking that “the most consequential thing any coach did at this Euros was Julian Nagelsmann persuading Kroos to come out of international retirement”. Gavin Cummiskey, meanwhile, was in Cologne to see Scotland keep their tournament alive by drawing with Switzerland, setting up “a monumental clash” with Hungary on Sunday night.
In rugby, John O’Sullivan reports on the IRFU’s plans to fill the gap during Andy Farrell’s Lions sabbatical, performance director David Humphreys confirming that additional coaching resources could be brought in on an interim basis while he’s away.
In his America at Large column, Dave Hannigan tells the story of the house where Muhammad Ali grew up. “One of these days they’re liable to make it a national shrine,” Ali once said of his family home, and while it never quite attained that status, it did become a stop on the Louisville Civil Rights Tour. Now? It’s for sale – for “a whopping $1.5 million (€1.4m)”.
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Having so far “mixed sublime with ridiculously bad in his career”, Auguste Rodin returned to his brilliant best at Royal Ascot on Wednesday to win the Prince of Wales’s Stakes for Aidan O’Brien. Can Vauban oblige for Willie Mullins in today’s Gold Cup? Brian O’Connor looks at his chances.
TV Watch: England meet Denmark in their second group game at Euro 2024 this afternoon (RTÉ 2 and BBC 1, 5pm). Earlier, Slovenia take on Serbia (RTÉ 2 and UTV, 2pm), and tonight there’s the rather tasty meeting of Spain and Italy (RTÉ 2 and UTV, 8pm). ITV4 (1.30pm-4.25pm) and UTV (4.15pm-6pm) have coverage from Royal Ascot today, including the Gold Cup at 4.35, and later Leona Maguire and Stephanie Meadow are in the field for the third major of the season, the LPGA Championship in Washington state (Sky Sports Golf, 11pm-3am).
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