‘Cheik Mate’ in the Star is the catchiest of headlines to describe last night’s Magners League Final, but had you not watched the game, you might deduce from said headline that Leinster had indeed won the game and Michael Cheika’s last game in charge of the blues was a successful one.
Alas, that was not the case as Tommy Bowe’s Ospreys came away from the RDS with a memorable victory on a night when their star-studded backline clicked into gear and Leinster’s big guns failed to show up. ‘Bowe aims true’ is the more appropriate headline in the Sunday Times as the Monaghan man, along with team mate, Lee Byrne, destroyed Leinster’s much vaunted defence to help secure a 17-12 victory.
Sticking with the oval ball, the Sunday Independent tell of Paul O’Connell’s frustration with a persistent groin injury that has dogged the big second row since the end of the Six Nations in March. O’Connell has been excluded from the summer tour to New Zealand and Australia as a result of the problem, which the big man calls ‘the most unbelievably frustrating and annoying thing I’ve ever had’.
O’Connell refuses to blame the injury on too many games, telling the paper, “It’s funny when you read about people saying it’s been a long year. Well, not for me. I never did more than three games in a row this season – maybe three once and then two and that was it. So it’s not like I was knackered or anything like thatâ€.
The same paper flashes the headline, ‘Tribesmen display their All-Ireland credentials’, after Galway disposed of a battling Wexford at Nowlan Park last night. To this observer, Galway’s performance was nothing more than solid, but that will no doubt please Tribesmen supremo John McIntyre who wouldn’t want expectations raised any higher with Kilkenny probably awaiting in a Leinster final.
With the world cup still a couple of weeks away, the tabs need some soccer stories to fill the back pages and they haven’t disappointed this morning. The Star report that Giovanni Trappatoni has rejected the alluring overtures of Inter Milan and eh, Celtic and will remain loyal to the boys in Green ahead of the Euro 2012 qualifying campaign which kicks off in September.
The man himself said, “Someone close to Celtic approached me and asked would I be interested in the position but I said no, I am with Irelandâ€. Bless him.
A couple of Manchester United stories to wrap up the morning for you. The Sunday World reports that Wayne Rooney will be offered a staggering £9 million a year, the equivalent of £180,000 a week to fend off any approach from Real Madrid. Should Rooney be awarded such a lucrative contract, he would eclipse United’s current highest earner, Rio Ferdinand by a whopping £50,000 a week. Financial crisis? What crisis?
Finally, ol’ red nose himself, Sir Alex Ferguson, has shown no signs that he will step down in the near future despite the fact that he’s nearly pushing 100 at this stage.
The Star, or rather Marcelo Lippi claim to know the reason why Fergie continues to point at his watch and bark at fourth officials even when his peers are collecting the pension and spending their days drinking tea and collecting stamps, it’s because he’s too scared to quit. The paper carries quotes from the smooth chain-smoking Italian, who said, “Alex is terrified of retiring. He doesn’t want to be at home doing nothingâ€.
