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'Endless competition' at Leinster driving McCarthy

'Endless competition' at Leinster driving McCarthy

BBC News4 days ago
Ireland hooker Gus McCarthy believes competition for places at Leinster is helping him develop as a player.The 21-year-old won his fifth Test cap in his side's 34-5 win over Georgia in Tbilisi last week having made his debut against Fiji in November.With British and Irish Lions Dan Sheehan and Ronan Kelleher ahead of him in the pecking order at Leinster, McCarthy played just three times for his province between the end of the Six Nations and conclusion of the domestic season in June."I haven't played a huge amount. I didn't really get involved in the URC knock-out matches or the latter end of the Champions Cup," said McCarthy."I did get quite a bit of game-time in the middle of the season. It's great to learn from the best, some seriously good talent."The competition is endless, it's constant competition which keeps you on your toes. It's very positive."Ireland will conclude their two-Test summer tour against Portugal in Lisbon on Saturday (19:00 BST).The trip is being lead by usual forwards coach Paul O'Connell and an interim ticket of assistants with Andy Farrell and 16 members of his playing panel on tour in Australia with the Lions. "Portugal are a very, very attacking and dangerous side. We've watched a lot of them. They aren't to be taken lightly," McCarthy added. "We're going to put a lot of prep in and make sure we're all guns loaded for Saturday. We're really, really looking forward to the challenge."
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Ben Healy dethrones Tadej Pogacar to take yellow jersey as Simon Yates wins stage 10 at Tour de France
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Ben Healy dethrones Tadej Pogacar to take yellow jersey as Simon Yates wins stage 10 at Tour de France

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Ben Healy takes yellow jersey as Simon Yates wins stage 10 at Tour de France
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Ben Healy takes yellow jersey as Simon Yates wins stage 10 at Tour de France

Irishman Ben Healy rode himself into the yellow jersey with an outstanding display of grit and power as Simon Yates won stage 10 of the Tour de France from a breakaway on the Puy de Sancy. A monster Bastille Day stage through the Massif Central delivered the fireworks as Healy put in a huge shift in the break to maintain a sizeable gap over the chasing peloton, fighting his way to third on the stage and then counting the seconds until Tadej Pogacar finished. Advertisement Pogacar put in a late dig as he traded blows with rival Jonas Vingegaard, but when the world champion came in four minutes 51 seconds behind Yates, 4:20 behind Healy, the yellow jersey swapped shoulders with Healy 29 seconds better off going into Tuesday's rest day. Simon Yates took the stage 10 win out of the breakaway (Mosa'ab Elshamy/AP) Yates profited as he followed Healy's lead for most of the last 20 kilometres, then distanced him on the climb to the finish, but the biggest grin was on the face of the 24-year-old EF Education-EasyPost man who became the fourth Irishman to wear yellow and the first since Stephen Roche in 1987. 'It was insanely tough, it was a battle against myself really,' Healy said. 'I just had to dig deep. My team-mates put in so much work today, Harry (Sweeny) and Alex (Baudin), I really, really wanted to pay them back and I'm happy I could do that in the end. 'I kind of gambled a bit. I had the stage win in the bank and how often do you get the opportunity to put yourself into yellow so I felt I had to take that and really go for it.' Advertisement With the peloton made to wait an extra 24 hours for their first rest day, race organisers put a monster challenge in their way with eight categorised climbs and 4,500 metres of elevation on the 165km stage from Ennezat – ideal territory for a breakaway. A group of 29 eventually got away but were given little rope until they were whittled down to a more focused group of 17 midway through the stage, with the gap growing sufficiently to give Healy a hope of yellow. 💖💛💖💛💖 BEN IN YELLOW !!! The Irishman takes the leader's jersey on stage 10 after an insane ride from Healy and the squad 🥹 📸: @GettyImages #TDF2025 — EF Pro Cycling (@EFprocycling) July 14, 2025 He got the message, abandoning the ambition of doubling up on his stage six victory and putting all of his efforts into powering on what became a group of just six riders, maintaining the gap to the peloton at more than five-and-a-half minutes almost until the foot of the 3.3km climb to the finish. That was the moment for Yates, the Giro d'Italia winner who came to the Tour to support Vingegaard, to launch his own attack, quickly distancing Healy and holding off Thymen Arensman to win his third career Tour stage and first since 2019 by a margin of nine seconds. Advertisement 'It's been a long time!' Yates said. 'I was not really expecting any opportunities here. I came fully focused on Jonas and the GC, but the stage played out in a way that I could be here for the stage win and I took it with both hands. 'I'm under no illusions about what we're here for. Even today the main plan was to be there in case something was happening from behind but the gap was too big so I cracked on and went for the stage.' Remco Evenepoel lost six seconds to Pogacar in the final and is now a full minute behind the world champion in third place, 16 seconds clear of fourth-placed Vingegaard.

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