The clock is ticking. This afternoon Andy Farrell will name his first Ireland lineup as head coach when he picks the 15 players to start in the Six Nations against Scotland this Saturday. Farrell will announce his team from the Irish training base in Portgual where our own Gerry Thornley is present and waiting. The team announcement is expected around 2pm and we will have full reaction and analysis but, in the meantime, you can read our rugby correspondent's predicted team in which he reckons Caelan Doris will be one of the new faces. Meanwhile, with Matheiu Raynal set to take charge of Ireland's opener against Scotland this weekend, Gavin Cummiskey has a look at the men in black who will take charge of Ireland's five matches.
Moving on, and with the schools' rugby season now well underway, Gerry Thornley looks at one of the more remarkable stories so far this year – that of non-fee paying school Temple Carrig who have come past St Andrew's and Pres Bray to set up a clash with defending champions St Michael's on Thursday. The school was only established in 2014 and this is their first Leaving Cert cycle. "For them to be facing St Michael's is akin to Uruguay playing the All Blacks in the World Cup, or Brentford somehow qualifying for the Champions League and being drawn against Real Madrid, in terms of pedigree, budget, facilities and player pool," he writes. We've got loads of rugby coverage for you this morning and it doesn't stop there as former IRFU referee director Owen Doyle writes in his column this morning that the breakdown in law and order in rugby must stop. "The law book does not seem to be read, or understood, as completely as before. The referees' knowledge of the laws seems less than comprehensive," he writes.
On to soccer where interim deputy CEO Niall Quinn and interim CEO Gary Owens met with Football Association of Ireland (FAI) staff on Monday to provide some reassurance about the association's future, with several members of staff describing the meeting as having been "positive", reports Emmet Malone. It is one of the first meetings Quinn and Owens have had in their new positions and general reports were quite good. The appetite is very much there for change in the FAI and in Irish football as a whole and indeed one of those changes could be an All-Island League which is back in the news today as Kieran Lucid's group is set for a series of public meetings in Belfast, Dublin and Dundalk over the coming days at which consultancy group Hypercube will deliver their initial findings on the proposed idea. On the pitch there were more positives for Arsenal last night as Mikel Arteta picked up his first away win as manager with a youthful lineup guiding them past Bournemouth and into the fifth round of the FA Cup. They will now face Portsmouth after the draw was made last night with either Liverpool or Shrewsbury Town facing a trip to Chelsea while Manchester United could meet Wayne Rooney and Derby County.
In this week's consumer pages Philip Reid looks at hotel pricing around major sporting events and how room rates can rocket up depending on demand. The Six Nations is one event when this is seen quite regularly while prices for the dates of the four Euro 2020 matches in Dublin this summer have also been increasing.
Moving stateside and Kobe Bryant's death on Sunday left the sporting world in shock and mourning but Joan Niesen writes this morning that, in mourning the NBA superstar, the bad as well as the good should be remembered, especially the 2003 sexual assault case which reflected quite badly on the then 24-year-old and was eventually settled out of court after the alleged victim declined to testify following months of a media smear campaign.
Finally to GAA where Seán Moran writes that the crowd of 42,502 and the average TV viewing figures of 392,000, peaking at over half a million, represent a very positive start to the new campaign.
