The World Cup takes a back seat temporarily on this morning’s back pages as the papers concentrate on tomorrow’s meeting of age old Leinster rivals, Dublin and Meath in Croke Park.
‘Gilroy’s gamble’, shouts the Irish Independent after Dublin bainisteoir Pat Gilroy made four changes to the side that struggled badly against Wexford before overcoming the Model County after extra time. Captain David Henry is the most significant man to lose out, with former All-Star Alan Brogan slotting in instead at centre forward while Bryan Cullen will don the number six in place of the injured Cian O’Sullivan.
‘Gilroy’s red mist warning’ is the angle taken by the Irish Sun, who tell us that Gilroy has warned his players of the importance of discipline in the meeting of the old rivals, which has been a tumultuous rivalry in the past.
“Discipline is key for this game because it will be a physical game. We’ve worked on trying to be a lot more disciplined in the tackle and not give away easy freesâ€, said the Dublin boss.
In South Africa, Spain are through as group winners after a hard-earned victory over a feisty Chile side. A potentially mouth-watering last sixteen meeting with Brazil has been avoided, but Spain v Portugal shouldn’t be a half-bad game and the papers are all over the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo will be coming up against a number of his Real Madrid team-mates.
‘The Cris of Death’ is how the Sun sum it up while the Star goes with the predictable, ‘Spanish too hot for Chile’ headline to describe the David Villa-inspired victory.
England’s meeting with Germany is also covered across the board and away from all the jingoism in the tabs, the Irish Times’ chief soccer scribe, Emmet Malone, is predicting a win for the Germans. ‘Germany can bag big game’ he says, predicting that the speed and guile of the likes of Thomas Muller and the excellent Mesut Ozil may be too much for a leaden English defence.
