NewsBank (Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland))

Targeting a team’s weaknesses is usually a recipe for winning but better still is to successfully target an opposition’s strengths. The Bulls arrived in Dublin with the URC’s most productive scrum and a much-vaunted kicking and aerial game. From the off Leinster won both battlegrounds and thereafter the Bulls had nowhere to go.

Dublin avoided the banana skin against Joe McDonagh Cup winners Kildare with a dominant display that sets them up nicely for an All-Ireland quarter-final against Limerick next weekend.

With wins over Dublin and Kerry, it’s fair to say Meath are officially back. Ironically, the last time the Royals defeated Kerry, by 2-14 to 0-5 in the 2001 All-Ireland semi-final, has been identified by some as the day the Meath rot set in.

More than just one game. In the helter-skelter end, Galway just about won their fierce fight for survival in the Group of Death, coming from eight points down at half-time to land a one-point win with the last kick of the game on Saturday evening; a cool-as-you-like it free by Shane Walsh.

Louth punched their away day ticket for next weekend’s preliminary quarter finals after a nervy win over Clare in Portlaoise. The win was a much needed one nonetheless for the Leinster champions.

Welcome to celebrity corner.

Is employment in the tech sector hitting another rough patch? A new report from RationalFX gives pause for thought.

Israel launched a wave of air strikes across Iran yesterday, blasting Iran’s huge underground nuclear site, wiping out its top echelon of military commanders and killing nuclear scientists in the biggest direct attack between the two countries.

An Post has confirmed it will relocate its Rathmines branch by September, paving the way for the sale of one of the most prominent buildings in the south Dublin suburb.

The Government came to power with an urgent mandate to resolve the housing crisis. It’s had an inauspicious start.

A seemingly innocuous memory surfaces regularly for me. I was a teenager paddling on the beach in Clonea, near Dungarvan. A beautiful, dark-haired woman in a navy swimsuit ran past me from the sand into the waves. She had a slender upper body but her legs were disproportionately large. They were doughy-looking, uneven and lumpy with lots of bruises. Her feet were as slender and narrow as her...

More than 3,000 people have signed a petition objecting to the granting of planning permission for a mussels farm in Kinsale, Co Cork, which they say will be the size of “12 GAA pitches”.

KEVIN O’SULLIVAN Environment and Science Editor The world is on the verge of ratifying a historic high seas treaty following progress made at the UN Oceans Conference that concluded in Nice, France, yesterday.

PAT LEAHY and

ÁINE RYAN Annie McCarrick’s mother Nancy is well used to waiting.

CONOR LALLY Security and Crime Editor The search for the remains of Annie McCarrick at a house in Dublin was due to continue through the weekend after the man questioned on suspicion of her murder was released from Garda custody without charge yesterday afternoon.

SALLY HAYDEN in Beirut

When Josh Honohan’s football career eventually stops rising, he will remember the month of June in 2025.

So it’s, like, ridiculous o’clock on a Saturday morning – we’re talking nine, ten, something like that – and I hear a ring on the front doorbell, followed, a short time later, by the sound of a woman’s voice going, “Is this the home of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly?”

BARRY ROCHE

The investigation into the Air India plane crash that killed more than 240 people is focusing on the engine, flaps and landing gear, a source said yesterday, as the aviation regulator ordered safety checks on the airline’s entire Boeing-787 fleet.

One year ago, 14-year-old Amelia Belle Ferguson collapsed while out on a hike on one of her last days at an Irish college in Connemara. When they saw her on the ground with her shoulders shaking, her friends thought Amelia was just laughing at herself for falling over. But Amelia’s heart was failing. During that day, unknown to anyone, her heart had been beating in chaotic rhythms.

The crash of an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner in the western city of Ahmedabad on Thursday, which killed 241 of the 242 people on board, has drawn attention to the national carrier’s safety violations and operational lapses in recent years.

The worst experience that Sinéad Whiston has ever had on a flight was when a passenger was “verbally abusive and trying to damage the aircraft”.

Pity the Government as it looks to juggle the competing interests of tenants and landlords while looking to inject new vigour into a flagging housebuilding programme.

Children making their Confirmation in Ireland will be invited, from next year, to take an expanded “pledge”. As well as vowing to abstain from alcohol until adulthood, they would abstain from vaping and smoking.

MARTIN WALL

MICHAEL JANSEN Arab countries have united in condemnation of Israel’s attack on Iranian nuclear and military facilities and personnel.

FIONA MAGENNIS Jurors in the trial of family members of Jozef Puska, who are charged with offences relating to obstructing his arrest for the murder of schoolteacher Ashling Murphy, have ceased

JOAO LIMA