Furlong and the Ireland squad have turned their attention to Saturday’s trip to face England in Twickenham (14:10 GMT) where he will likely come into direct contact with Lions team-mate Ellis Genge who he acknowledges is “not a fella with a Lions hangover”.
While England lost their Calcutta Cup match against Scotland, Furlong felt Steve Borthwick’s side were strong in the scrum and this is an area Ireland are seeking to improve after some struggles in their win over Italy.
“We were negative three in the penalty count so that was a disappointing result,” Furlong acknowledged.
“Italy do have a good scrum and we saw what they did to South Africa in November.
“The fixes are the simple stuff – height, entry and angles, but they did a good job of isolating the two on ones in the scrum.”
Furlong won his 83rd cap as a replacement against the Italians and is now firmly in the veteran category in the squad.
Ireland have suffered a number of injuries for this Six Nations, especially in the forwards, which has resulted in a number of new faces promoted into starting line-ups and match-day squads.
Despite a chastening defeat by France in their opener and struggles in victory against Italy, Furlong remains optimistic as to regards the trajectory of the team.
“There are players missing through injury or retirement and it changes the feel of the group,” he acknowledged.
“I remember travelling off to Portugal (pre-Six Nations training camp) and there were a load of new faces there and I was thinking ‘this feels a bit different, I feel a bit older’.
“As the weeks went on with the younger players and come of the others came back into camp, the younger players have come out of themselves a bit from a rugby point of view.
“Where that leaves us? The rest of the championship will tell that story but I like where the group is going, there’s a lot of promise.”
UCLA coach Cori Close constantly reminds her players to ignore every mention of a streak and any hint that they have arrived.
The Bruins are hoping to extend one streak and avenge another this season, but the only way Close and her players believe they can accomplish that is ignoring all of it.
No. 2 UCLA was in complete control during an 88-65 win over No. 8 Iowa Sunday, extending its winning streak to 15 games. As we reach February and inch closer to March, is this veteran UCLA team with tremendous depth ready to avenge its streak of losing to the eventual national champion during three consecutive seasons?
Hawkeyes coach Jan Jensen suggested yes, she just lost to the best team in the country.
“We played Connecticut, ranked No. 1, and we’ve now played UCLA,” Jensen said during her postgame interview on Hawkeye Radio Network. “There’s no question in my mind who No. 1 is. I haven’t played three and four, but I wouldn’t argue against UCLA. They just have so many weapons and they’re so efficient.”
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Close joked she expected Jensen’s endorsement, but knocked the suggestion the Bruins are ready to play for a national championship.
“We’re not yet,” Close said with no hesitation. “We’re not. I think that one of the things that last year taught me as a leader is that you can never feel like you’ve arrived at your standard. The team that starts reading what the outside world is saying about them or starts settling into a comfort zone, they’re the ones that lose their momentum and lose their edge.
“I think that the edge is a really good place because it’s where your talent is not the factor. It’s when you’re forced to develop the discipline and the skill that it takes to really be successful. And I want our team to live on that edge every day.”
During seemingly every media interview this season, her experienced players have echoed that message.
UCLA assistant coach Tasha Brown was the latest to inspire the team, drawing on her experience during a safari. Her group saw friendly lions during the day, but they were warned they had to leave by dusk because that’s when the lions began to hunt.
The Bruins agreed they could be friendly before and after games, but during games, they must hunt.
“The target is not on our backs, we have a target on other people,” said Angela Dugalic, who led the Bruins with 22 points off the bench against Iowa on Sunday. “… We’re not taking anybody or any team, any game for granted. I don’t care where you’re ranked, or who you are, at the end of the day, you’re our opponent and that’s it.”
Speaking of streaks
John Wooden in 1972.
(Associated Press)
The UCLA women’s basketball team’s 15-game winning streak stirs memories of the most iconic winning streak in Bruins history.
It began with a UCLA men’s basketball victory over UC Santa Barbara on Jan. 23, 1971. And it continued for an NCAA-record 88 remarkable games. Notre Dame rallied from a 17-point deficit to earn a 71-70 win over UCLA to end the streak on Jan. 19, 1974.
“It’s the continuation thing that makes you proud,” UCLA coach John Wooden said. “It’s not something one team could do all by itself.”
The Times revisited the Bruins’ streak in great detail in 2010. Read more here.
Google him?
Bob Chesney, center, with athletic director Martin Jarmond, left, and Chancellor Julio Frenk during his introduction in December.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)
New UCLA football coach Bob Chesney spent the last week running some of the same motivational plays that vaulted Indiana coach Curt Cignetti to a national title.
Like Cignetti, Chesney won big at James Madison before earning a head coaching job at a Big Ten school nobody expected to contend for a conference title, much less a national championship.
Cignetti famously stated: “I win. Google me” during a new introducing him as the Hoosiers’ new head football coach. He followed it up by setting championship expectations at a school that held the record for most losses in NCAA history.
During a Wooden Athletic Fund fundraiser last week, Chesney told donors: “When we as a staff talk to these recruits, we want UCLA to be considered the greatest place in the world to play football. Period. That’s it. The greatest place in the world to play football. Which means the greatest place in the world to then watch a football game. And it’s the greatest place in the world to be connected with the players and the coaches and the community within it. It really does take a village, and there’s never been a time in the history of sports you that you can affect that team. Let’s go be great and make this the greatest place in the world to play football.”
Chesney followed it up by firing up a broader audience during a UCLA men’s basketball game at Pauley Pavilion on Saturday.
“It’s an honor to be here. I’d like to introduce you to our staff, the best staff in the world. … I’ve been here about a month now. Looking around, there’s nothing average that I see about UCLA. There is nothing average. And I did not come here to be average. This is the team of the future. That future starts now. Go Bruins.”
Perfect again
Jordan Chiles competes in floor exercise on her way to a perfect score.
“I think I’m understanding my body,” Chiles said. “… I’ve been sick for the past two days. Obviously last week our team was pretty down and I was the last one to get it. And so I think what really helps me get to this point is really my teammates. Understanding that no matter where I’m at, no matter the circumstance, we all have each other’s back.”
No. 3 UCLA women’s water polo (6-0) won the Tritan Invitational, defeating No. 2 USC (8-1) Sunday at the Canyonview Aquatic Center at UC San Diego.
The Bruins have defeated five teams ranked in the top 10 and improved to 57-42 in the series against the Trojans.
Senior Taylor Smith led UCLA with a game-high five goals and added an assist. Senior Bia Mantellato and freshman Katherine O’Dea finished with two goals apiece. Mantellato drew a penalty, an exclusion and tallied a steal in the win. O’Dea drew an exclusion and recorded two assists for a total of four points in her first matchup against the Trojans. Junior Lauren Steele earned 13 saves and one steal while surrendering nine goals.
Survey time
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California once had specialists dedicated to resolving conflict between people and wolves, mountains lions and coyotes. But after funding ran dry in 2024, the state let all but one of them go.
The move came as clashes between us and our wild neighbors are increasing, as climate change and sprawl drive us closer together.
Now, a coalition of wildlife advocates is calling for the state to bring back, expand and fund the coexistence program, at roughly $15 million annually.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) will soon introduce legislation that would create the program, her office confirmed. Nonprofits Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation are co-sponsors.
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The money supporters want would be used to pay 50 to 60 staffers to focus on the Herculean task of balancing the needs of people and wildlife, as well as buy equipment like “unwelcome mats” to shock bears or fencing to protect alpacas from hungry lions.
Wildlife agencies acknowledge that education is key for coexistence, said Pamela Flick, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, at a hearing Tuesday at the state Capitol dedicated to human-wildlife conflict. “But then staff time and resources don’t get allocated by agencies that are already chronically understaffed and underfunded.”
The hearing gave floor time to local law enforcement, representatives of affected regions and academics.
Since the funding expired, “I want to make it clear, the Department [of Fish and Wildlife] recognizes that we have potentially seen a gap in service, and folks have felt that,” Chad Dibble, deputy director of the department’s wildlife and fisheries division, said at the hearing.
Some aspects of the program live on — notably, a system that allows people to report run-ins with wildlife that may prompt the state to take action.
Both tragedies unfolded in rural Northern California, with the fatal lion mauling occurring in El Dorado County.
Assemblymember Heather Hadwick — a Republican who represents El Dorado, as well as Lake Tahoe, which is ground zero for bear problems — called conflicts with predators her district’s biggest issue. “We’re at a tipping point,” she said.
Along with El Dorado, Los Angeles County, at the opposite end of the rural-urban continuum, leads the state for the highest number of reported wildlife “incidents.” These range from just spotting an animal to witnessing property damage.
Debates over how to manage predators can be fierce, but beefing up the state’s ability to respond is uniting groups that are often at odds.
A coalition that includes ranchers, farmers and rural representatives supports bringing back the conflict program, and also wants $31 million to address the state’s expanding population of gray wolves.
Most of that money would go to compensate ranchers for cattle eaten by wolves and for guard dogs, scaring devices or other means to keep them away from livestock.
The wildlife advocates support funding wolf efforts, but believe ranchers should be compensated only if they’ve taken steps to ward off the predators.
Asked his thoughts on it at the hearing, Kirk Wilbur, vice president of government affairs for the California Cattlemen’s Assn., a trade group, called it “a complicated question.”
“Ranchers should be doing something in the realm of nonlethal deterrence, and they are, but we have to be careful to make sure that our nonlethal solutions are not overly prescriptive,” he said.
The elephant in the room: The state’s budget is strained, and many are clamoring for a piece of the pie.
More recent wildlife news
Twenty starving wild horses stranded in deep snow near Mammoth Lakes recently survived an emergency rescue by the Forest Service, I wrote last week. Several died, including one after the rescue, from starvation and exposure. Some, beyond saving, were euthanized.
For some, the Forest Service acted exceptionally, but others questioned the handling of the situation. It’s the latest controversy for these horses. Wildlife advocates have long opposed relocating a large portion of the herd, which the feds say is necessary to protect the landscape.
If you need a pick-me-up, take a gander at a video of an Austrian cow using a long brush to scratch herself. It’s not just adorable; as noted by the Washington Post’s Dino Grandoni, it’s the first documented case of a cow using a tool.
Need even more awww? Read about sea turtle Porkchop’s recovery journey at Long Beach’s aquarium. She had a flipper amputated and a fishing hook removed from her throat, and could return to the wild in a matter of weeks.
Coyote mating season is here and that means you are likely to see more of the animals in your neighborhood, per my colleague Karen Garcia.
A few last things in climate news
More than a year after the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, contamination remains a top concern. A state bill introduced this week aims to enforce science-based guidelines for testing and removing contamination in still-standing homes, schools and nearby soil, my colleagues Noah Haggerty and Tony Briscoe report.
Highway 1 through Big Sur (finally) fully reopened after a three-year closure from landslides. As fellow Times staffer Grace Toohey writes, the iconic route is expected to face more challenges from the effects of climate change: stronger storms, higher seas and more intense wildfires.
Per Inside Climate News’ Blanca Begert, the Bureau of Land Management has revived an effort to open more of California’s public lands to oil extraction. Will it be successful this time?
This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.
