The former Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll will be keen to taste victory in his last appearance against England, a former British & Irish Lions teammate warned the host side ahead of their Six Nations clash at Twickenham on Saturday.
Graham Rowntree, the England forwards coach, said: “Beating us will mean everything to him. What a player. He’s a thoroughly professional player; as a man, he’s exceptional.”
O’Driscoll will be making his 13th appearance against England.
Rowntree was part of the Lions management team that dropped O’Driscoll for the climactic final Test against Australia last July.
Rowntree said: “I remember the day when he was left out of the team. That afternoon he was sat down with the guys going through things on the computer, helping them and coaching them. That speaks volumes about the man.”
O’Driscoll will equal the world record set by the former Australia scrum-half George Gregan of 139 caps when he faces England.
England are making their first appearance of the year at Twickenham following two games on the road, having lost narrowly to France in Paris and routing Scotland at Murrayfield.
Meanwhile, the Scotland coach Scott Johnson admits that not even a victory over Italy on Saturday will cure the side’s problems.
The Scots have suffered painful thumpings to Ireland and England as their Six Nations campaign got off to the worst possible start. Their meeting with the likewise winless Italians at the Stadio Olimpico could settle who finishes last in the competition.
The beleaguered Johnson said that not even a morale-boosting triumph in the Eternal City will guarantee that his side have turned the corner.
“There is no doubt, we would take a win,” he said. “It would be good for the guys, but it won’t be the end of all our ills, either. I keep talking about it – we want consistency in this team.
“That’s one of my issues with Scottish rugby. We seem to settle for these little peaks and then the troughs.”
sports@thenational.ae
Match info
Athletic Bilbao 0
Real Madrid 1 (Ramos 73' pen)
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
