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Ireland deliver latest medical bulletin on skipper Sexton and prop Furlong who last played 11 months ago

By PA
(Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Ireland captain Johnny Sexton said his latest injury problem is “not major” and he hopes to be fit for the Guinness Six Nations opener with Wales. Fly-half Sexton, who suffered hamstring issues at the back end of last year, limped off during Leinster’s PRO14 win over Munster on Saturday.

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“Any time you get a little niggle like that it’s very frustrating because I trained hard to make sure that didn’t happen and it did at the time I didn’t want it to happen, which is somewhat typical,” said Sexton, whose country play in Cardiff on February 7.

“It’s not major and hopefully I will be back training by the end of the week and hopefully be fit for the Wales game. It can be frustrating when you pick up these things but it is a tough game to get through now.

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Chris Ashton’s first interview as a Worcester player

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Chris Ashton’s first interview as a Worcester player

“I was in a good place before the Munster game, so I won’t let it get me down too much and just get back on the horse and hopefully I will be firing next week.”

Leinster prop Tadhg Furlong was included in Ireland’s squad despite not having played for almost a year due to back, calf and hamstring issues. Farrell said Furlong was feeling “fit” and “strong” and hoped the player would be able to build his fitness by playing for Leinster against Scarlets on Saturday.

“There’s a natural progression that needs to happen for Tadhg himself to be physically and mentally right and to earn the right to be available for Wales,” said the coach. “Speaking to Tadhg on Tuesday, he was feeling good, feeling fit, strong, meeting all the requirements.

“He feels in good spirits so hopefully we get him through to the end of the week, get him some minutes under his belt for Leinster if selected, and then the plan would be that he comes back into camp on Sunday with us and we can assess where he is at.”

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fl 3 hours ago
‘The problem with this year’s Champions Cup? Too many English clubs’

"Right, so even if they were the 4 worst teams in Champions Cup, you'd still have them back by default?"

I think (i) this would literally never happen, (ii) it technically couldn't quite happen, given at least 1 team would qualify via the challenge cup, so if the actual worst team in the CC qualified it would have to be because they did really well after being knocked down to the challenge cup.

But the 13th-15th teams could qualify and to be fair I didn't think about this as a possibility. I don't think a team should be able to qualify via the Champions Cup if they finish last in their group.


Overall though I like my idea best because my thinking is, each league should get a few qualification spots, and then the rest of the spots should go to the next best teams who have proven an ability to be competitive in the champions cup. The elite French clubs generally make up the bulk of the semi-final spots, but that doesn't (necessarily) mean that the 5th-8th best French clubs would be competitive in a slimmed down champions cup. The CC is always going to be really great competition from the semis onwards, but the issue is that there are some pretty poor showings in the earlier rounds. Reducing the number of teams would help a little bit, but we could improve things further by (i) ensuring that the on-paper "worst" teams in the competition have a track record of performing well in the CC, and (ii) by incentivising teams to prioritise the competition. Teams that have a chance to win the whole thing will always be incentivised to do that, but my system would incentivise teams with no chance of making the final to at least try to win a few group stage matches.


"I'm afraid to say"

Its christmas time; there's no need to be afraid!

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