RUGBY UNION: Australia utility back James O’Connor has signed a short-term contract with London Irish, the struggling English Premiership club announced yesterday after securing the services of a talented player capped 44 times by the Wallabies. Despite showing plenty of promise, the 23-year-old was released from his Australia Rugby Union contract earlier this month after a string of disciplinary issues and failed to agree a deal with any of his country’s five Super Rugby franchises.
MOTOR RACING: Lotus apologised for bad language in a heated exchange with their driver Kimi Raikkonen during Sunday’s Indian Grand Prix. Trackside operations director Alan Permane was heard on the team radio using a profanity to order the Finn, who had worn tyres and overheating brakes, to move over and let team-mate Romain Grosjean through for third place. Raikkonen replied with some choice words of his own. Team principal Eric Boullier said: “With hindsight, this radio message could have been sent in a less emotional way. I know that quite a few people were surprised and I can only apologise for that.”
SNOOKER: World champion Ronnie O’Sullivan suffered an early exit from the International Cham-pionship in Chengdu after Liang Wenbo recovered from three frames down to reach the last 16 yesterday. O’Sullivan, who had not played in a major tournament since winning the World Cham-pionship in May, made a suc-cessful return to a ranking event by beating Anthony McGill in the first round in China on Monday. The Essex potter built a 4-1 lead against Liang, but could not progress to a knockout meeting with Mark Davis – a 6-3 winner over Stuart Carrington – as his 26-year-old opponent won five straight frames to clinch a shock 6-4 victory.
HORSE RACING: Game On Dude has been installed as the early 8-5 favourite and will break from the ninth post for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Santa Anita Park on Saturday. Last year at Santa Anita, Game On Dude ended up a disappointing seventh out of 12 after going into North America’s richest race as the 6-5 favourite.
CRICKET: Usman Khawaja has been handed the chance to audition for an Ashes place after being named in the Australia A side to face England two weeks before the first test. Shaun Marsh, Alex Doolan and Callum Ferguson will also be keen to press their claims in Hobart from Nov. 6-9, the last match the tourists play before Australia name their squad for the first test in Brisbane. Khawaja played three of the five tests in the first Ashes series of the year but was dumped for the final match after managing to average 19 runs over six innings.