Saturday’s likely title decider in Six Nations renews an intense rivalry fuelled not by geography but the two teams’ brilliance

Saturday is a day that has been ringed in the calendar for months. The anticipation of France and Ireland renewing rivalries has been immense and what always shaped up as the likely decider for the championship will prove to be exactly that. Again. They have been the two most consistent, outstanding teams in the Six Nations for years now and they rarely disappoint when they lock horns.

It’s an intense rivalry but it isn’t fuelled by geographical reasons or historical antipathy. It is just a rivalry based on the brilliance of both sides, the two dominant teams battling out for the alpha status. It reminds me of Arsenal and Manchester United 20-25 years ago. Two teams separated from the rest of the pack by the quality they possess.

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3 mins: Newcastle chance! Barnes leads a foray through the centre, then gets it back from Gordon and sends in a teasing cross to the back post for Isak, whose header is pushed back out to him but he blasts over.

1 min: Brighton start breezily, with Mitoma initiating an attack down the left but the ball in from Hinshelwood is easily repelled.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian city that was initially spared worst have increased since Washington-Moscow detente

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Olena Palash heard a loud buzzing above her flat in the Ukrainian port of Odesa. It was 11pm. First one drone, and another, then more. Soon afterwards, one of the Shaheeds crashed into the children’s clinic where she works. An explosion shredded the building’s facade. The metal covering of a car park was remade into a spaghetti-like jumble. Another drone smashed into a nearby kindergarten.

The attack on 18 February knocked out a substation and plunged some of the city into darkness. Four people were injured, including a 10-year-old girl, and 80,000 were left without heat. Russia’s air war in the skies above Ukraine is nothing new. But since negotiations began between the US and Russia – talks from which Kyiv has been excluded – the raids have got dramatically worse.

In Twentynine Palms, California, these business owners have gained more than a job – they’ve built a sense of identity

The California desert, for 28-year-old Madie Chapman, was a shock to the system.

Chapman became a desert resident last summer, when her husband, a field radio operator, was stationed at the Twentynine Palms combat center, the largest US Marine Corps training base in the world. Within just a few months of receiving orders, the couple moved with their three young children to the secluded outpost near Joshua Tree national park, joining the thousands of other active-duty service members and their families who live there.