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Newcastle United winger Jacob Murphy is having the season of his career.

The 30-year-old helped the club he supported as a boy to their first trophy since 1969 when they shocked Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final.

His eight goals and 11 assists in the Premier League have him touted for a first England call-up.

Murphy has been talking to BBC Football Focus about everything from his twin Josh to the Carabao Cup final to his international ambitions.

Murphy’s twin brother Josh plays for Championship side Portsmouth.

The pair were both born in London but moved to Norfolk as children and joined Norwich at under-12 level.

They both bounced around various EFL clubs for a bit – with Jacob joining Newcastle in 2017.

Both of them have enjoyed arguably the best couple of years of their career. Josh scored twice in the 2023-24 League One play-off final for Oxford against Bolton Wanderers – and was named Pompey’s player of the season recently.

“It’s a weird one,” said Jacob. “Everyone else in a career in football has to do it alone.

“I was lucky that I had Josh, we’ve always been each other’s biggest support – all the way through, even going back as early as someone to practice with in the garden.

Murphy’s family are from the north east of England so he grew up as a Magpies fan even though they lived hundreds of miles away.

His route to St James’ Park was a circuitous one, with loan spells at Swindon Town, Southend, Blackpool, Scunthorpe United, Colchester United and Coventry City from Norwich before his 2017 switch to the Magpies.

“Everyone needs their own individual journey of weird and wonderful things to find themselves,” he said.

“You have a crossroads situation where your career will go one of two ways. I vow to always choose the better path.

“My agent let me know Newcastle were interested. I was like ‘come, on let’s get this done’.

Murphy had two loan spells in the Championship in his first three seasons at Newcastle – with West Bromwich Albion and Sheffield Wednesday.

His career has been somewhat of a slow burner. Until this season he had not scored more than four Premier League goals in a season.

“I do have targets but I never try to force it,” said Murphy.

“I always let it come to me if I’m doing the correct things. That’s how the universe works, it’ll always find you. This season been finding me.

Murphy was part of the Newcastle team that beat Liverpool 2-1 in the Carabao Cup final in March – and set up Isak’s goal to make it 2-0.

That was the Magpies’ first trophy since the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969 – and their first domestic one since the 1955 FA Cup.

Murphy also played in the 2023 Carabao Cup final, which Newcastle lost to Manchester United.

“Wembley was amazing,” said Murphy. “The feeling was a lot different this time compared to when we were runners-up a couple of seasons ago.

Murphy has not played for England at any level since the 2017 European Under-21 Championship.

He reportedly turned down a chance to change his international allegiance to Nigeria, where his biological father is from, earlier this year.

And he is hoping for a first senior call-up this summer by Thomas Tuchel. He was given encourgament by Magpies team-mate Dan Burn, at the age of 32, making his England debut under the German during the last international break.

“Dan has not only been a really good friend but he’s been a great inspiration for myself and a lot of people in the dressing room,” said Murphy.

“To see him getting the accolades and for people to really appreciate him as a player at 32, that is added incentive.

“Dreams of playing international football can still be there. Credit to the new manager for putting faith in Dan at such an age. Hopefully people at 30 aren’t being overlooked. 30 is the new 25!

“It’s something I can see. But I know taking care of my club form is going to give me the best opportunity to represent my country.”

The white smoke may have finally appeared above the Vatican in Rome, but Italy’s great bike race will see a miasma of pink dance across the Eternal City when the race concludes there in three weeks’ time.

While the new Pope has been elected, the chosen one to wear pink as winner of the Giro d’Italia is as unclear as last year’s win by Tadej Pogacar was predictable – the living legend deciding a 10-minute winning margin was enough not to bother defending his title.

But if a race doesn’t need a top star, it’s the Giro: sun, sea, sand (or white chalk), snow and often torrents of rain greet the peloton year in year out in what is the sport’s most unpredictable Grand Tour.

Before any of the top British riders dream of Rome on 1 June, they have to hit completely unknown roads as the race begins for the first time in Albania on Friday.

Riders take on two hilly stages and a time trial there before hopping across the Adriatic sea to Italy for three days of racing to Naples on the flat as sprinters such as Olav Kooij, Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen begin the battle for the cyclamen points jersey in the south of the country.

At 25 Tom Pidcock is in his prime and in the hotseat as leader of his new Q36.5 team, for which he has already won the Saudi Tour this year and come close to winning some of the sport’s most prestigious one-day races, including Strade Bianche in Tuscany.

Refreshed and revitalised after a controversial departure from Ineos Grenadiers, one of cycling’s most expansive – and expensive – talents finally has a chance to prove what he has always threatened to do since breaking through in 2021: “To show I can win a Grand Tour.”

But Pidcock is not the only one with a new challenge on the mind this year. Ever-present twins in the Italian Alps and Dolomites over the years, Adam and Simon Yates have never really fully been in competition to win the pink jersey.

But now the planets have aligned for what could be a final tilt at winning the race for the now 32-year-olds.

Both great climbing talents, Adam rides for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, often as a super-domestique for Pogacar’s attempts to win the Tour de France, but here he is unleashed. Simon does the same job for Pogacar’s main rival Jonas Vingegaard in France for Visma Lease a Bike, but he too has a chance to make history here, alone.

And as the more decorated of the two, with 10 Grand Tour stage victories and the 2018 Vuelta a Espana’s red jersey on his palmares, does he think he has the edge?

“It’s exciting to play a similar role to what my brother would do. Me and my brother are always very competitive in races,” Simon said earlier this season. “But we’ve not raced against each other as much as you would think.

“That’s going to change. We’ll have to see who comes out on top.”

Given there are now a record 34 British riders in this year’s top level World Tour, the potential for success could be greater than the golden era of Team Sky and the presence of the legendary Mark Cavendish.

But making your mark at a young age is never easy at the top level.

There are five previous winners in the peloton who could extinguish British hopes. But none sit above the Giro’s mysterious ways.

Ineos’ Colombian champion Egan Bernal (2021) is still rebuilding after life-threatening injuries, and EF Education-Easy Post’s Richard Carapaz (2019) has struggled late on in Grand Tours when the Ecuadorian’s peers have pushed on.

Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic (2023) has the most Grand Tour wins in the field having also won four Vueltas, but at 35 is he at the same level? Plus he has a younger and possibly hungrier team-mate in Australia’s Jai Hindley, who still has plenty to prove since he won in 2022.

Could we see a first British winner since Tao Geoghegan Hart in 2020? Looking at the origins of the competitors the Giro has long since ceased to be a purely Italian affair.

The Minnesota Timberwolves cruised to a 117-93 victory over the Golden State Warriors to level their NBA Western Conference semi-final at 1-1 on Thursday evening.

Julius Randle scored 24 points and provided 11 assists in Minneapolis while Anthony Edwards added 20 points and nine rebounds and Nickeil Alexander-Walker scored 20 points from the bench.

Edwards said the Timberwolves watched footage of game one to help them prepare for the second match in the best-of-seven series.

“We saw that it wasn’t just that we didn’t make shots, it was our defensive pressure and intensity; we didn’t bring it,” he said.

Minnesota started the game on a 25-7 run, but the Warriors closed the gap to 62-55 in the third quarter.

“We looked a lot more like ourselves,” Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said.

“The start was great, that’s what we needed to set the tone. We were pretty consistent with everything other than the beginning of the second half.

“Other than that, it was exactly the response that we needed.”

Jonathan Kuminga led the Warriors scoring with 18 points while Jimmy Butler III tallied 17.

Stephen Curry watched from the bench after he injured his left hamstring in game one. The Warriors point guard is expected to miss at least a week.