Author: Sports Desk

Nathan Collins and Evan Ferguson are among the absentees, while the manager says he has spoken to every player individually about the two fixtures against Israel.Heimir Hallgrimsson has named a 26-man Republic of Ireland squad for a Nations League window that takes in four matches, beginning away to Kosovo on Thursday.Sheffield United defender Liam Kitching, on loan from Coventry City, receives his first senior call-up. Cardiff City left-back Joel Bagan and Hibernian forward Owen Elding are also uncapped, while Watford’s Rocco Vata returns for the first time since March 2025 after a long-term injury.Nathan Collins misses out with a calf…

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The Republic open their campaign in Pristina on 24 September and face Israel three days later at a neutral venue in Hungary. Both are winnable. Neither is straightforward.The Republic of Ireland return to competitive football later this month with two away fixtures that will shape the group before most supporters have got used to the idea that the season has restarted.Ireland travel to face Kosovo at the Stadiumi Fadil Vokrri in Pristina on Thursday 24 September, then meet Israel on Sunday 27 September at the Nagyerdei Stadion in Debrecen, Hungary, a neutral venue. Two away games in four days is…

Four Connacht titles, two All-Ireland finals and no Sam Maguire. The Killererin man leaves the Galway job having restored the county to the top table without quite completing the climb.Pádraic Joyce has stepped down as manager of the Galway senior football team, bringing to a close one of the more consequential inter-county tenures of recent years. Galway GAA confirmed the decision in a statement on Thursday evening.Joyce took charge for the 2020 campaign and leaves after seven seasons with four Connacht senior football championships and two All-Ireland final appearances on his record. What he does not leave with is the…

Ireland’s greatest athlete retired on Saturday night with a shutout win over Flora Pili, becoming a three-time undisputed world champion in the first boxing event at Croke Park since Muhammad Ali fought there in 1972.There was no ambiguity about it, and after everything that came before, that felt like the point. Katie Taylor closed a career that changed women’s sport with a wide unanimous decision over France’s Flora Pili at Croke Park on Saturday night, and then put her gloves down in the centre of the ring.The judges scored it 100-90, 100-90 and 98-91. Taylor retires with a professional record…

In the summer of 2023, approximately 50,000 people attended the Women’s Rugby World Cup at Thomond Park and the Aviva Stadium as Ireland hosted the tournament for the first time. Later that year, the Republic of Ireland women’s football team qualified for the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the first time in the country’s history and the coverage and public response exceeded anything women’s football in Ireland had previously generated. In 2024, Irish women athletes won more Olympic medals in Paris than the men’s team.By any historical comparison, women’s sport in Ireland has never been in a stronger position. The question…

When Ireland won consecutive Six Nations titles in 2023 and 2024, reaching the world number one ranking in the process and delivering a Rugby World Cup quarter-final performance that, on another day against a different referee, might have gone further, the global rugby conversation began asking a question that Irish rugby people had been quietly debating for a decade: how does a country of five million people sustain a player development system that is outperforming England, France and Australia?The answer is structural, cultural and the product of decisions made over twenty years, some of them deliberately, some fortuitously. Understanding the…

Gaelic football has been arguing about its own structure for as long as anyone involved in it can remember. The qualifier system, the back door, the provincial championship, the Super 8s, each iteration of the All-Ireland Championship format has been introduced as the solution to a problem and within a few years has become the problem it was supposed to solve. The current championship structure, which moved to a round-robin provincial series feeding into a national league-style preliminary round before knockout football resumes, is the most significant overhaul in decades.It was also the most contested. When the GAA Congress voted…

James Lowe added another chapter to an extraordinary Leinster career by becoming the province’s all-time leading try scorer during Leinster’s United Rugby Championship quarter-final victory over the Lions.The Ireland international entered the match level with former Leinster star Shane Horgan’s long-standing record and wasted little time in making history. By crossing the try line twice, Lowe moved clear at the top of the province’s scoring charts and underlined his status as one of the most influential players of the professional era.The achievement came on another landmark occasion for the New Zealand-born winger, who was making his 100th appearance for Leinster.…

Kerry produced a remarkable second-half turnaround at the Croke Park to defeat Tyrone and claim the All-Ireland Under-20 Football Championship title. This ended an 18-year wait for success at the grade.For much of the opening period, it appeared Tyrone were on course to secure a historic three-in-a-row. The Ulster side raced into an early lead and at one stage held an eight-point advantage, leaving Kerry with a mountain to climb.However the Kingdom responded with the resilience and composure that has long been associated with Kerry football. Gradually reducing the deficit before half-time, they emerged after the break with renewed intensity…