There's a bumper day of rugby action with three Irish provinces playing across the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup over the rest of the day. We'll bring you Leinster's trip to Bayonne at 3.15pm Irish time to start, followed by Munster v Castres at 5.30pm and finally the Challenge Cup tie between Connacht and Montauban at 8.00pm in our liveblog below.
Ulster opened the New Year with appropriate cheer, seeing off Munster at a bitterly cold Affidea Stadium to rack up a second successive interprovincial victory which saw them hit second in the URC table.
Munster warmed up for their festive battle with Leinster next Saturday with a bonus-point win on the road that saw them move up into second place in the United Rugby Championship table.
A married father in his 60s who revealed last week how he was scammed by a dominatrix he met online says she has now threatened to send images of their chats to his family and their workplaces. The man, who is based in Munster and asked not to be named, toldhow he ended up paying €1,200 to a woman calling herself Ms Penelope who said she would be his 'mistress' and he could be her 'slave'.
A defensive front has begun to surface around Cork since their league triumph earlier this month, sandbags erected high to absorb the waves of apparent hype crashing in on their shores.
