How Robert and Dougie MacIntyre brought light back to PGA Tour after its darkest week.
On the eve of his 14th and final Six Nations Championship, Johnny Sexton was asked what the tournament means to him.
Don’t remember him in that stupid bloody robe. Not for now at least. Remember him walking up to the trophy the first time. Remember the way, unlike 2014 in the Maracana when he walked by head bowed, this time he stopped, caressed the round globed top of the World Cup and gave it the tenderest kiss, then a second for good measure.
Walid Regragui stepped out on to the playing surface and looked to be deciding which of his fallen Atlas Lions to move towards first. Their ruby-red bodies littered the floor of this Bedouin desert tent, the stadium’s sides billowing in and out as Moroccan voices roared and rolled down from upon high.
Luka Modric wasn’t hanging around. He walked swiftly to the sidelines, slung off the elastic around that had kept his hair in place and joined the Croatian bench. Nine minutes remained but this was not his night.
Kylian Mbappé’s eyes were so narrowed, you wondered if he could even see. He’d seen enough.
Gareth Southgate’s problem, it seems, is that he is everything they now run away from. He is respectable. He is reliable. He is consistent. He is sensible. He is patient. He is pleasant. And he is almost out of time.
A break. What a concept. The World Cup gods had other ideas though.
Things move a little slower here on a Friday. With the working week running from Sunday to Thursday, Friday is the Muslim holy day, a time for gathering, for congregation at places of worship.
