The rugby never stops. Just two weeks after Ireland's Six Nations humiliation in Cardiff at the hands of Wales, the provinces return to action for the Champions Cup quarter-finals this weekend. For Munster it's a meeting with Edinburgh on Saturday to determine who will take up a semi-final place. Writing in his stats column this morning, John O'Sullivan says that no team left in this season's tournament can match Munster's track record of success at the quarter-final stage in European club rugby's premier competition, the Irish province having accumulated 13 victories in 17 games. It's certainly an impressive record but one that the Munster men know will be put to the toughest of tests this weekend by a strong Edinburgh side. For Chris Farrell this is one of the biggest games of his career after a circuitous route to get here. Yesterday he spoke to Gerry Thornley about the task at hand. In Saturday's evening game it's the all-Irish clash of Leinster and Ulster which takes centre stage. For a Leinster backrow it's a constant battle to get the game time you want, something Jack Conan knows all too well, as he told Johnny Watterson yesterday.
On to soccer and Ireland will head into the next round of European qualifiers with a strong wind at their back after taking six points and two clean sheets from their opening games against Gibraltar and Georgia. However, next up is an altogether different task as Mick McCarthy's side head back to Copenhagen in June to meet the now all-too-familiar foes of Denmark. For the new manager there was no time to adapt before being thrown in at the deep end of competitive matches but there have been plenty of positives with David McGoldrick, Conor Hourihane and Jeff Hendrick standing out so far. Areas of the pitch still up for debate however are the full-back spots and not least how to get Matt Doherty into the team, as McCarthy explained after the win over Georgia on Tuesday. But if matters are all running smoothly on the pitch then the same can't quite be said for the boardroom where, as Emmet Malone reports, the association still has not provided the information requested by the Oireachtas committee which John Delaney and other board members will face next month.
Moving stateside and Rory McIlroy took care of business early at the WGC World Matchplay in Austin last night by defeating Luke List 5 and 4 in their opening Group 4 encounter. McIlroy now sits in prime position to advance to the knockout stages as he prepares to face Justin Harding today and then Matt Fitzpatrick in tomorrow's final group game. Things didn't go quite as well to plan for Shane Lowry who was defeated 4 and 2 by Sergio Garcia, leaving the Offalyman with a lot of work to do.
On to our women in sport pages and Sonia O'Sullivan writes this morning of her memories of the World Cross Country which takes place in Aarhus on Saturday. "It was one race where the best athletes over every distance, from 1,500m right up to the marathon, took a chance and lined up at least once in their career," she writes. Meanwhile, Joanne O'Riordan writes about Ireland's inspirational Special Olympics team while Aoife Hopkins talks to Niamh Griffin about her busy lifestyle of juggling her studies at Trinity attempts to qualify for the sailing at next year's Tokyo Olympics.
