Week 1:

6 February 2010 14:30 GMT	Ireland	29 v 11	Italy	Croke Park, Dublin Referee: Romain Poîte (France)

6 February 2010 17:00 GMT	England	30 v 17	Wales	Twickenham, London Referee: Alain Rolland (Ireland)

7 February 2010 15:00 GMT	Scotland	9 v 18	France	Murrayfield, Edinburgh Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)

Week 2:

13 February 2010 14:00 GMT	Wales	31 v 24	Scotland	Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Referee: George Clancy (Ireland)

13 February 2010 16:30 GMT	France	33 v 10	Ireland	Stade de France, Paris Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)

14 February 2010 14:30 GMT	Italy	12 v 17	England	Stadio Flaminio, Rome Referee: Christophe Berdos (France)

Week 3:

26 February 2010 20:00 GMT	Wales	v	France	Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)

27 February 2010 13:30 GMT	Italy	v	Scotland	Stadio Flaminio, Rome Referee: Dave Pearson (England)

27 February 2010 16:00 GMT	England	v	Ireland	Twickenham, London Referee: Mark Lawrence (South Africa)

Week 4:

13 March 2010 14:30 GMT	Ireland	v	Wales	Croke Park, Dublin Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)

13 March 2010 17:00 GMT	Scotland	v	England	Murrayfield, Edinburgh Referee: Marius Jonker (South Africa)

14 March 2010 14:30 GMT	France	v	Italy	Stade de France, Paris Referee: Alan Lewis (Ireland)

Week 5:

20 March 2010 14:30 GMT	Wales	v	Italy	Millennium Stadium, Cardiff Referee: Wayne Barnes (England)

20 March 2010 17:00 GMT	Ireland	v	Scotland	Croke Park, Dublin Referee: Jonathan Kaplan (South Africa)

20 March 2010 19:45 GMT	France	v	England	Stade de France, Paris Referee: Bryce Lawrence (New Zealand)

The 2009 Champions will kick off the new campaign with a tie at home to Italy.  The same fixture in 2009 was played in Rome and brought a 38-9 victory to the Irish, their biggest margin of a tournament in which the won all 5 matches.

England Coach, Martin Johnson, will field at least one rookie prop in their opening game against the all-Lions front row of Wales.  Uncapped pair, Matt Mullan and Dan Cole have been promoted to the Championship side after injury to Andrew Sheridan and Julian White.  The Welsh are likely to start with a front row of Adam Jones, Matthew Rees and Gethin Jenkins, who are all Test Lions from the summer tour to South Africa.  Johnson also confirmed Steve Borthwick will continue as England captain into the Six Nations.

The tournament kicks off on February 6th.  For a full fixture list click here.

John Terry has been releived of his England Captaincy duties, it has been confirmed.

The decision was made in a brief meeting between Capello and Terry at Wembley this afternoon (Friday).

It has been confirmed that Rio Ferdinand will lead the 3 Lions into the World Cup this summer, with Steven Gerrard as his deputy.

Capello has said that his decision was made as he was thinking about the best for the entire team.  He said that Terry has been a model professional on the pitch but he must think about the actions of the Captain off of the pitch as well.

Terry himself has come out and said that he fully respects the decision and will continue to give his all for the team if and when he is selected.

Rio Ferdinand was already the understudy to Terry with Gerrard as 3rd choice skipper.

The Cosworth powered VR-01  chassis, which was launched on Wednesday, was designed using digital techniques with the team wholly relying on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technology rather than the more usual process of building scale models to test in a wind tunnel.

Team drivers Timo Glock and Lucas Di Grassi will begin a 2-day shakedown test at Silverstone today (Thursday), before meeting up with the other F1 teams next week for a group test in jerez.

Virgin Racing decided to enter F1 in light of the sport’s recognition of the need for cost cutting and claim to have the lowest budget of all 13 teams – around £40 million.  They partnered with Manor Grand Prix, who secured a place on the 2010 F1 grid last year.

This comes after Brawn GP, last season’s Championship winning team merged with Mercedes and ended their involvement with Virgin.

The FA came out this week and said that it would be Fabio Capello’s decision alone as to John Terry’s future role in the England team.

High level meetings have been held between England general manager, Franco Baldini and leading FA Officials.  Capello himself has been recuperating from knee surgery in Switzerland.

It is thought Capello will hold off on making any decision due to more potentially damaging revelations being released in a Sunday newspaper in the coming week.

The shock move of this year’s transfer window came at the 11th hour with Robbie Keane signing a 6 month loan deal at his boyhood club, Celtic.

Keane admitted it was a dream come true and that he was grateful to have the chance to play at Parkhead while he was still in his prime and not at the end of his career.

Keane joins Diomansy Kamara at Celtic and the pair could make their debut tonight in the match against Kilmarnock.

Elsewhere, Manchester City made some waves with the deadline day signing of Adam Johnson from Middlesbrough for a fee in the region if £8.5million.  Interest in the young winger was high but Manchester City won the race and have signed him on a contract to 2014.  This was City’s second signing of the window after they brought in Patrick Vieira from Inter earlier in the month.  Brazilian Robinho has failed to live up to his tag as Britain’s most expensive player and has re-joined former club Santos back in Brazil, on loan until the end of the season.

Another highly rated young player came to Wigan on deadline day.  Victor Moses has made the step up to the Premier League.  Wigan fought off reported interest from Manchester City and Spurs.

Manchester United won the race for Chris Smalling from Fulham.  The powerful young centre back will join in the summer after being loaned back to Fulham for the remainder of the season.  It has been quite a rise from Smalling who was playing way down in the 7th tier of English football just 18 months ago.  Fulham signed the promising teenager from Maidstone United in the Isthmian League Premier Division in June 2008. 

Tottenham Hotspur won the race for Eidur Gudjohnsen, beating West Ham to the former Bolton, Chelsea & Barcelona man’s signature.  He has signed a 6 month loan deal from current club Monaco.

West Ham turned their attention to other striking targets and on deadline day confirmed the captures of Benni McCarthy, Ilan & Mido from Blackburn, Saint Etienne & Middlesbrough respectively.  McCarthy & Ilan have been brought in on permanent contracts while Mido has signed on a 4-month loan deal after spending the first half of the season on loan at El Zamalek in his native Egypt.

A small blessing on the south coast at crisis club Portsmouth, as they had just the one departure.  Many expected there to be something of a fire sale to help east the clubs financial burden but just young keeper Asmir Begovic made his way out of the club.  Stoke were the club that signed the keeper after previously holding talks with Portsmouth’s other stopper, David James.  The deal bringing the 22-year old Bosnian to the Potteries is thought to be £3.25million.

Fulham & Sunderland were busy on the loan front at the close of the window. Fulham brought in Italian Striker Stefano Okaka on loan from Roma as well as full back Nickey Shorey from Aston Villa, they had earlier released Diomansy Kamara on loan to Celtic.

Sunderland brough in their own new full back, Alan Hutton from Spurs.  They also released 3 players on loan with Nyron Nosworthy going to Sheffield United and Daryl Murphy & David Healy joining former gaffer, Roy Keane at Ipswich.

It appears that the Credit Crunch is finally affecting Football after spending was the lowest it has ever been.  Since the window was introduced in 2003 Premir League clubs total spend has been: 

2003 – £35m
2004 – £50m
2005 – £50m
2006 – £70m
2007 – £60m
2008 – £150m
2009 – £170m
2010 – £30m

The problems that have been well documented at Portsmouth all season as well as financial turmoil at West Ham & Crystal Palace have highlighted the fact that the global financial problems are affecting football clubs for the first time since we entered a recession in 2007.

It seems to be more important than ever that clubs focus their attention on bringing through home-grown players from their academy’s rather than spend millions abroad.

Wigan have signed highly rated teenager, Victor Moses, from Crystal Palace

Moses’ agent has confirmed that the promising 19 year old has joined Wigan on a three and a half year deal.

The deal is though to be worth £2.5million.  Newcastle, West Brom and Nottingham Forrest all made bids for Moses, but he has opted to take the step up to the Premier League with Wigan.

Such is the Nigerian born youngster’s promise that high flying Man City and Spurs were thought to be in the hunt for his signature.

The move may help ease the financial woes at Palace who went into administration last week.

It was a plucky performance from Murray, but Britain’s 74 year wait for a victory in a Major tournament goes on as Federer takes the title in Melbourne.

Roger Federer claimed the 16th Major victory of a glittering career.  This was actually Federers 18th Major Final from the last 19 tournaments.

It was an uphill task for Murray from the get go as Federer seemed in no mood to help end Great Britain’s barren run in a major tournament.

Federer took the first set 6-3 at a canter.  Murray had no answer to the super Swiss and the second set came almost as easily, 6-4.  Both sets were finished in 43 and 46 minutes respectively.

Murray suddenly woke up and began fighting back, at one point in the 3rd set Murray broke Federer’s serve.  But it wasn’t enough and after a thrilling 3rd set, Federer won through 7-6 (11).

This was the 8th time in his career that Federer had won a Grand Slam Final in straight sets and at 28, he is showing no sign of slowing down.  For Murray it’s onto Roland Garros and the French Open in May.

2010 CAN

Semi Finals

Ghana 1-0 Nigeria
Algeria 0-4 Egypt

3rd/4th place play-off result:

Nigeria 1-0 Algeria

Englands World Cup opponents Algeria go away from this years tournament in 4th place after a 1-0 defeat at the hands of Nigeria.  Victor Obinna scored the winning goal in the second half after a closely contested encounter at the Abuja Stadium.

2010 CAN Final

Egypt 1-0 Ghana

After a close game, Egypt won through to clinch their 3rd Africa Cup of Nations in a row.  The goal came in the final 5 minutes after a lovely 1-2.  The tournaments top scorer Gedo scored his 5th of the campaign to clinch a record 7th AFCON for Egypt.

Roger Federer signalled his intentions to Andy Murray ahead of the Australian Open Final on Sunday by Devestating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-2 6-3 6-2 in this Semi Final.

Sunday will mark Federer’s 22nd Grand Slam Final appearance and Tsonga’s only word’s of advice to Murray were “get ready to run”.

Murray had made reasonably light work of his own Semi-Final the day before Federer.  After going a set down to Croatian Marin Cilic, he swept the no. 14 seed away with 3 sets in a row to win 3-6 6-4 6-4 6-2.

The pressure must be beginning to build on Murray as he seeks to end a 74-year barron spell for Britain.  The last time a Brit won a tennis major was in 1936 when Fred Perry won the U.S. Open to add to his 3 consecutive Wimbledon titles.

Whatever happens in Sunday’s Final, you can be sure that Murray will give it everything and it should make for a fascinating clash.