Irish Sporting Eye

A Derby winning horse trained by an O’Brien is a very common sight over the past number of years, but in most cases it’s Aidan taking the plaudits. However, at the Curragh on Sunday it was his eldest son Joseph 25 who took the honours, as his Latrobe ridden superbly by his brother Donnacha won the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby. In doing so, he managed to hold off all four of his father’s entries, beating Rostropovich, Saxon Warrior, Delano Roosevelt and The Pentagon, as the O’Brien clan finished 1,2,3,4,5.  Latrobe, owned by Australian property developer Lloyd Williams, broke well and settled in second just behind Rostropovich. As the field turned into the home straight Donnacha let him go, but favourite Saxon Warrior was hot on his heels.  The colt, who won his maiden at the same track only 3 week’s previously, settled down for a battle, but Saxon Warrior never got nearer than his hind quarters. Rostropovich, to his credit, battled back very bravely on his inside and look...

Ireland T20 captain Gary Wilson admitted that his side batting wasn’t good enough, following their big 143 run win in the second match of the 2-games series against India in Malahide yesterday.  India won the series 2-0, having claimed the first game by 76 runs on Wednesday, and  head to Old Trafford for their first T20 against England on Tuesday in confident mood.  Wilson found it difficult to come up with the answers for the defeat saying, “It is very difficult to sum up the whole thing. I thought we were going quite well, despite that they started very well with the bat again. But we seemed to drag it back in the middle period and then let them get away a touch in the end, which was disappointing.” After 18 overs India were on 174/4 and Ireland were hoping to keep the score under 200, but that was before Hardik Pandya decided to take things into his own hands. He scored a whopping 32 off just 9 balls, toying with bowlers Peter Chase and Kevin O’Brien.  Wil...

Cecelia Joyce hit a career best T20 score on Friday in a defeat to Bangladesh, their second in consecutive days, but whilst disappointed with the result she took a lot of positives from the game.  Joyce said, “You`re always working on things. There's a few things I`ve been working on that came off, thats the kind of thing I`m taking from it because to play the innings that you mean to play, to play the shots that you mean to play, to move the field, to execute your skills the way you want to. That's really what I'm focusing on. Really, this is like a warm-up for the T20 qualifying, so if I can bring those things forward that will be brilliant, so I will focus on that." Joyce opened the batting alongside Clare Shillington, as they looked to rebound from Thursdays last ball defeat, however Shillington barely lasted until the third inning when Jahanara Alam took out her leg stump.  Alam, who took 5 wickets for just 28 runs just 24 hours earlier, also claimed ...