Aberdeen beat Ross County to stay in Premiership contention, Glasgow Warriors fail in Europe again, artist Damien Hirst on Ronnie O’Sullivan’s genius

High flying Don

Aberdeen's match winner celebrates

Great Dane

Celtic's new signing Eric Sviatchenko

Hearts filled with joy

Igor Rossi, one of Hearts' six scorers against Motherwell

Dundee's captain fantastic

Gary Harkins, two goals and two assists at ex-club Thistle

Heading back south

Nathan Oduwa's time at Ibrox is up as he returns to Spurs

Hoping to stay

Nicky Law (right) is eyeing new deal at Ibrox

Familiar finish

Saints coach Jim Mallinder's teenage son Harry scores the try that kills off Glasgow Warriors European hopes

Leaving nothing to chance

Andy Murray paying attention to detail as he finalises his preparations in Melbourne

Class apart

Ronnie O'Sullivan cruises to victory after nine month lay-off

Long-awaited celebration

Curler Silvana Tirinzoni lifts the trophy at the Glynhill Ladies International

Racing for Rio

Central Athletics Club's Andy Butchart has his eyes fixed on the big prize

06.06 Radio Scotland sports headlines

Defending champs Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams through to second round at Australian Open after straight sets win, but Britain's Kyle Edmund beaten in first round... Leigh Griffiths says he hopes reaching the 50 goals mark for Celtic can propel him into Scotland team... Ronnie O’Sullivan crushes Barry Hawkins 10-1 to claim sixth Masters snooker title

06.30 Radio Five Live sports headlines

Widespread suspected match-fixing in world tennis... disappointing start for Britain at Australian Open as Kyle Edmund loses… wins for defending champs Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams in straight sets… Van Galle hails fantastic win for Man Utd at Liverpool… Bolton face HMRC winding up petition… Aberdeen three behind Celtic… O’Sullivan wins Masters title number 6… Wasps just miss out on being first away team to win in Toulon in European Champions Cup and also wins for Racing, Northampton and Harlequins

Today’s back pages

The Herald, The National and The Evening Times all go big on Eric Sviachenko with the prospect of Rasmus Falk following him over from Denmark while The Herald also reports on Glasgow Warriors’ latest Euro failure and the Times leads on Nicky Law looking poised to agree a new deal at Ibrox

Grandstanding – today’s sports comment

Matthew Lindsay complains in The Herald about how wearying the fall-out from unruly behaviour by football fans has become and suggests tougher punishments for clubs that do not do enough to prevent it, while in The Evening Times Alison McConnell invites Ronny Deila to explain why others can learn from the once wayward Leigh Griffiths’ example

Sporting Twitterati

One wise man from the east, The Evening Telegraph's Tom Duthie, passes comment on matters west:

If Adam Rooney was a Utd player Celtic would've signed him by now.

— Tom Duthie (@tomduth) January 17, 2016

As does another, The Courier's Steve Scott:

Hope Vern has them doing three days of handling drills at St Andrews next week because Gregor seems to have let them slip all season.

— Steve Scott (@C_SScott) January 17, 2016

Today’s top message

An interlude in yesterday’s Masters snooker final brought sport and the art world together as Damien Hirst – animals in formaldehyde and diamond skull man as he is best known to we ignoramuses – discussed his friendship with Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Presenter Hazel Irvine threw Hirst something of a curve ball (should that be a massé when we are discussing snooker?) by asking him about something he had been quoted as saying previously: “He's not the mercurial, flawed genius of the past any more. He's just a fully paid-up genius now. He never gets trapped in a cage in a match, he's like a free bird.”

Hirst looked bemused and asked whether he had said that, as well he might, because a quick Google brought it up in an article in The Independent about Hirst’s relationship with O’Sullivan, but that quote was actually attributed to one Steve Davis who was, ironically sitting to Hirst’s right as yesterday’s exchange took place.

For all the abuse he took in the “Spitting Image” Davis is actually fascinating to listen to on sport and while he made no attempt to re-claim his words he then took the conversation down a different route by saying he had often wondered what it would be like to see the sport through the eyes of O’Sullivan or, for that matter, those of the man sitting to his right while this was going on, Stephen Hendry.

The generosity of his words must be placed in the context of Davis having been arguably the most dominant player the sport has ever seen when it was at the height of its popularity in the eighties, but you can understand what he meant.

While Davis played an orthodox game to something close to perfection when at his peak, Hendry transformed it in the nineties with his raw aggression when opportunities arose.

In his reckless way O’Sullivan has added another dimension to that, taking long lay-offs before claiming major titles and piling the pressure onto opponents both through that attitude to the sport and in attempting and pulling off shots that others think ridiculous.

Such flair is what draws us to certain players in sport, Hirst saying he felt the best word he could use to describe it would be instinct and it is hard to argue with that.

Personally I am inclined to believe that they do not see things that differently, they are just willing to take on the highest tariff shot or manoeuvre and have a sufficiently high level of skill to pull it off so often that it becomes enabling for them and intimidating for opponents.

Whether they have ever thought it through these are men who seem to understand sport in its proper context, that whatever the criticism that will be levelled at them by others or just themselves, the risks they are taking relate to a game of sport and are not matters of life and death and they are consequently more energized by the prospect of what they might achieve than constricted by nervousness over any fear of failure.

The rest of us understand that process intellectually, but are rarely able to persuade ourselves to act upon it.

That is what makes risk-takers like O’Sullivan and, indeed, Hirst so compelling.

Thanks for reading - back tomorrow