defiant

Although Celtic conceded four, the scoreline did not flatter Benfica. The Portuguese side created chances aplenty in both halves and hit the woodwork twice in addition to their four goals.

Celtic’s lack of depth in defence was exposed once again in the absence of the injured Cameron Carter-Vickers as Gianluca Prestianni and Duran tormented the visitors’ back four.

However, it is in forward areas where O’Neill perhaps has his biggest headache.

Club record signing Kasper Hogh was hooked at half-time and has now failed to score in 10 of his first 11 outings since joining from Bodo/Glimt in the summer.

Duran shifted inside for the second half and posed far more of a threat than his Danish team-mate.

“If I’m a creative midfield player and I’ve got Duran and Hogh to pick from, I’m taking Duran every day of the week,” former Celtic midfielder Scott Allan said.

“He looks to get off the side of defenders, if you put a ball in the area, he’s more likely to be alive to it.

“Hogh just isn’t firing on all cylinders. I can take that if he’s doing the other side of the game a lot better than he is.

“You can see why Martin O’Neill made the substitution at half-time and there’s no doubt Celtic looked much better going forward.”

O’Neill admitted he sees Duran as being better through the middle, when asked about his Colombian talisman post-match, but given Hogh’s price tag he might not be inclined to pull him out of the firing line just yet.

“[Duran] has played wide at his previous clubs,” O’Neill said. “But I personally feel his best position is through the middle.

“It’s now a matter of us trying to fit him in and I think we can do that. It’s a real battle for places now.”

Trump tells a rally in Ohio that he believes there will be a “big surprise” in the upcoming elections.

US President Donald Trump has continued rallying for Republican candidates while visiting Ohio, proposing a defiant outlook on his party’s chances in the November 3 midterm elections.

Trump told a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, that he believes there will be a “big surprise” in the upcoming elections, claiming his Democratic opponents do not know what is happening.

Polls have suggested that Democrats could gain ground in the midterms, but the US president said Republicans would do better than critics expect.

“Just get out and vote,” Trump said as he rallied for US Senator Jon Husted, gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and other Republicans.

“If you do that, we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big,” he said.

Ohio’s Senate race

Multiple incumbent Republican senators across the country face tough political headwinds, with Trump’s popularity falling in recent months as higher petrol prices and those for other staples persist amid the US-Israel war ⁠⁠on Iran.

Husted, a Republican in a competitive Ohio race against Democrat Sherrod Brown, hopes the president can motivate supporters who might otherwise skip midterm elections.

Trump garnered more than 55 percent of the Ohio vote in the 2024 presidential election, but economic concerns since then have sunk his approval ratings.

Ohio petrol prices increased 35 percent over the past year to $4.16 per gallon (3.8 litres) on average, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which compiles data ⁠⁠on automobile travel. Trump’s trade policy with Canada has also led to retaliatory Canadian tariffs that affect about $3bn worth of Ohio exports, based ⁠⁠on 2025 figures, Canadian broadcaster CBC reported.

Talking to reporters shortly before addressing Saturday’s rally, Husted said the US has to win the Iran war “on our terms” and, in the interim, he is “showing people that I’m fighting for lower prices”.

Hot political issue

Trump extensively promoted his administration’s action on data centres, mainly those built for AI, during the rally, saying he was seeking to ensure they “benefit local communities” and praising Husted for an unsuccessful attempt to push forward legislation on the issue.

“Look, there’s so much money to be made for Ohio. You can’t just turn them off. They’ll go to China,” he said, repeating his defence of data centres.

Data centres have become a hot political issue, drawing bipartisan opposition in races across the country, with voters concerned about their impact on electricity prices, farmland and water supplies.

The issue became especially acute in Ohio, where Husted has been repeatedly attacked for his role in attracting data centres to the Midwestern state as lieutenant governor.

The Republican-controlled Senate tried to advance legislation this past week sponsored by Husted that would ask utility regulators to effectively charge large power users more, as consumers struggle with high energy costs. But it was blocked by nearly all Democrats.

“Senator Jon Husted gave billions in tax breaks to Big Tech to make sure they would build their data centres in Ohio,” Brown wrote on X on Friday, ahead of Trump’s visit. “Now, he’s making Ohioans foot the bill.”

Lewis was part of the Wales squad at the 2022 union World Cup and was set to play in the inaugural WXV tournament a year later.

But she suffered a serious knee injury as Wales beat Italy in the 2023 Six Nations.

Since her recovery Lewis has played for Brython Thunder in the Celtic Challenge but, with no WRU contract, felt she had unfinished business and “didn’t want any regrets”.

“I could have easily just walked away from rugby at that point. I could have just been like ‘I’m done’,” said Lewis.

“But internally, I knew I wasn’t, and I put so much time and effort into coming back and getting back fit, and I was only 28, and I was like, ‘I’ve still got so much time left’, and I just felt individually I didn’t deserve my time to be done based on someone else’s decision.

“So I took some time, and then I just set a goal to myself. If I got the opportunity to play rugby league, great.

“If I had the opportunity to play union, I wouldn’t say no. But this opportunity came up, and I just grabbed it with two hands, and hopefully now it’s paid off.”