Citizenship can give Ireland another win in County Hurdle March 15, 2012 ONE of the first names I look for in big handicap hurdles is Jessica Harrington. She is an outstanding trainer, particularly of hurdlers, and CITIZENSHIP must have a huge chance of giving Ireland a third straight victory in the County Hurdle. Willie Mullins has landed this race for the past two years with Thousand Stars [...]
Ireland will find extra motivation for victory March 15, 2012 ENGLAND vs IRELAND Tomorrow – 5.00pm BBC One CAN this game avoid being an anti-climax to the final round of Six Nations games? Ireland at Twickenham on St. Patrick’s Day suggests that the atmosphere will rival that 150 miles away along the M4, in Cardiff. Let’s hope the match is a fitting finale to one [...]
FTSE 100 slips after oil prices drop March 15, 2012 Britain’s leading share index slipped on Thursday, weighed down by weakness in heavyweight energy stocks after recent gains, with investors also looking ahead to futures and option expiries. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 4.71 points, or 0.1 per cent. BP shares dropped 1.26 per cent, while Cairn Energy shares fell 1.46 [...]
Cisco purchases NDS for $5bn March 15, 2012 Cisco Systems has reached a $5bn (£3.2bn) deal today to buy British digital video firm NDS, currently owned by a private equity firm Permira and News Corp. NDS offers technology used in BSkyB in its set-top box software, and would be one of Cisco’s biggest acquisitions. The purchase price of NDS was 35 per cent [...]
Ireland set to become oil producer March 15, 2012 Ireland may have discovered its first commercially viable oil well, 70km off the coast of southern Ireland. Providence Resources, operator of the Barryroe Well, reported today that it had found twice the amount of oil needed to hit the commercial target threshold. The company reported flow rates of nearly 3,500 barrels of oil per day, [...]
Sales drop at owner of Argos and Homebase March 15, 2012 Home Retail, the owner of Argos and Homebase, reported a big drop in sales in the eight weeks to 25 February, sending shares down 0.6 per cent. Argos sales decreased 8.5 per cent, while like-for-like sales at Homebase dropped 6.5 per cent, worse than the full year decline of 2 per cent. Despite this Home [...]
Lloyds to sell £1.4bn of Australian loans March 15, 2012 Lloyds Banking Group has started the sale of 2.1bn Australian dollars (£1.4bn) of non-performing loans on distressed property in Australia as the group seeks to wind down non-core assets, according to reports. The move is the second round of sales after the bank offloaded 1.7bn Australian dollars of distressed property loans to Morgan Stanley and [...]
Chelsea’s old guard seal Euro glory March 14, 2012 Terry, Lampard and Drogba on the scoresheet as Blues storm past Napoli and into the quarter-finals CHELSEA 4 vs NAPOLI 1 CHELSEA’S totemic captain John Terry hailed the barnstorming comeback that saw his side book their place in the last eight of the Champions League as his greatest night in Europe. Napoli arrived at Stamford [...]
MATCH ANALYSIS March 14, 2012 CITY A.M. VERDICT Their defensive vulnerability aside, this was the Chelsea of old, bullying their way back into a contest they looked destined to lose by some margin on the evidence of the early exchanges. The decision to oust Andre Villas-Boas suddenly looks a sage one. MAN OF THE MATCH He might be difficult to [...]
England’s Six Nations hinges on Ireland result, says Corry March 14, 2012 ENGLAND’S Six Nations campaign can only be rendered a success if Ireland are beaten at Twickenham on Saturday and even then Stuart Lancaster would not be an automatic choice to become head coach on a permanent basis, according to their former captain Martin Corry. Under Lancaster England have made significant progress since the World Cup [...]