There won’t be a busier man in Ireland this winter than Mickey Graham. A man in a good predicament, but a predicament all the same. Graham took over the footballers of St Columba’s Mullinalaghta three years ago with modest hopes and with low expectations. Three whirlwind years on and he’s won them their first county […]

7 years ago

If Mullinalaghta can do it, why can’t your club? A club of 155 members against a club of 4800. A club who amalgamates underage and can still barely field against one of Dublin’s super clubs. A club from a county who had never had a representative in a Leinster final before against a club who alone, […]

7 years ago

December 2018 in Netwatch Cullen Park and the 2019 season has already begun. For the first time since the 1990s, the football has got going before Christmas and though the added spice of the new rules was expected to turn a few more heads, it wasn’t enough of an attraction for most with a measly […]

7 years ago

Turlough O’Brien doesn’t see much future for the new rules. Carlow began their season with a 0-12 0-8 loss to Westmeath in the opening round of the O’Byrne Cup on Sunday afternoon. In front of a measly crowd at Cullen Park, the visitors looked fitter and their foot-passing was slicker than the home side, who […]

7 years ago

Mourneabbey have experienced plenty of heartbreak at this stage. They’ve mastered Cork, and they’ve mastered Munster over the last few years but there was something about the All-Ireland. Five Cork and Munster championships in a row meant they had plenty of opportunities, but the northwest county Cork club never took them. They suffered narrow final […]

7 years ago

Brian Cody has been banging this drum for a long time. The GAA Club forum took place in Croke Park on Saturday and from it came a number of positives. Chief among them was the director general of the GAA, Tom Ryan’s announcement that all the important stakeholders, the CPA, the GPA and the GAA […]

7 years ago

We have given you one, can you name the other?

7 years ago

It’s the last club weekend of the year. And the inter-county season is back already. We talk about players never really getting a break but this weekend offers cast-iron proof that one GAA season runs straight into the next. There are more arguments against the O’Byrne Cups and all the other pre-season competitions than there […]

7 years ago

Nigel Owens thinks it’s gone too far. It’s Christmas time and Shane McGowan’s Fairytale of New York is the talk of the town. Nothing new there, you’d think, sure it wouldn’t be Christmas without The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s iconic offering. Except this time, it’s not just on the radio and dominating the music channels. […]

7 years ago

Ray Moylette died with his boxing boots on. Round Five in the Royal Theatre and the 2000 present at the Castlebar venue were in for a different kind of performance. Mexico’s finest Christian Uruzquieta had sounded Ray Moylette out for four and in the fifth he let loose. Like a bullock let out to fresh […]

7 years ago

A great man departs. Mark Lynch is still only 32 and of course there are Derry fans out there saying that there was so much more to come because he’s still probably the best player in the county but in his 15 years with the Derry seniors, he never once shirked his county’s call and […]

7 years ago

Tight fit, baggy fit, player fit, regular fit, loose fit. Different strokes will please different folks. GAA players are a demanding, obsessive sort. Pre-match rituals and superstitions are often the be-all and end-all for players. They like to have their house in order mentally, and their head won’t be in the right spot unless they […]

7 years ago

There’s plenty of time for training. It’s a double edged sword for the last men standing. Having three months between their provincial final win and an All-Ireland semi-is good, in the sense that teams can properly bask in the glory of those great provincial wins. Like the men of Gaoth Dobhair currently are. All friendly […]

7 years ago

Martin Solveig was in the headlines instead. Norway’s Ada Hegerberg became the first ever female Balon d’Or winner in Paris on Monday night but rather than the moment crowning her year of years in women’s football, attention was instead drawn to a remark made by DJ Martin Solveig during the presentation. For some reason, Solveig […]

7 years ago

You love to see it. A Championship win is always celebrated wildly, but few teams have met their promised land with the gusto of Gaoth Dobhair this week. The whole parish in lock-down since Sunday evening but the party hasn’t stopped yet in the Hills of Donegal. Their gaelic footballers scaled their Mount Errigal when […]

7 years ago

Proper order. Lyon and Norway striker Ada Hegerberg won the first ever female Balon d’Or award on Monday night. The 23-year-old was on fire for Lyon all the way through the season, scoring a goal in their champions League final win and she rounded off her year of years by being crowned the player of […]

7 years ago

Naoise Ó Baoill came over to Gaoth Dobhair when he was 12. He didn’t have a word of Irish and he didn’t have a clue about Gaelic football. That was far from a head start in a place where Gaelic is the religion and Gaeilge is the language but little Naoise, not two hands higher […]

7 years ago

These look gruelling. Mick O’Dwyer spoke of the torturous measures he put his Kildare team through back in the day in the hills of the Curragh Army Camp. He didn’t do it for their fitness. Micko knew that making his players run up a savage hill in the Curragh Army Camp wasn’t going to be […]

7 years ago

It’s a wonderful time of the year. Gaoth Dobhair are the talk of the country and those lads will party for the rest of the country too. They’ve followed up county glory with a first ever Ulster title and unsurprisingly, they dominate this team of the weekend. They weren’t the only story of another great […]

7 years ago

The only trouble for Micís this Christmas will be keeping the drink out to them. Teach Mhicí in the heart of Gaoth Dobhair was the place to be on Monday morning and it will be the place to be this Christmas too. The club won their first ever Ulster title on Sunday afternoon and despite […]

7 years ago

He shouldn’t have to buy a pint in Gaoth Dobhair again

7 years ago

There’s something in the water there. Ballyhale is only a small little village in the south of Kilkenny but that small little village is Ireland’s most successful hurling club and it’s home to some of the greatest hurlers this island has ever seen. A couple of gifted generations have come and past but the hurlers […]

7 years ago

Odhran Mac Niallais has won plenty with Donegal. He lifted an Ulster championship in 2014 and he won another one on a sunny summer afternoon this year too. Never in his life, however, has he had a day like this dirty Sunday up in Omagh and never in his life has he been on a […]

7 years ago

Friends, teammates, winners. Gaoth Dobhair beat Scotstown to win their first ever Ulster senior football championship on Sunday afternoon. What a journey it’s been for the Gaeltacht side who, after cruising to glory in the Donegal championship, were dealt a cruel blow in the first round of Ulster when their key player, Kieran Gillespie, did […]

7 years ago

Ballyhale are back. Shefflin is finished, so is James Cha Fitzpatrick but the Shamrocks have a new breed of players now and it’s that young blood that’s taking them onto the great things that Shefflin and Fitzpatrick did in the past. The Shamrocks had way too much for Ballyboden in the Leinster senior hurling final […]

7 years ago

There was no winner of the South Tipperary football final last year. In actual fact, the final for the 2017 championship took place on January 8 2018 but after Clonmel Commercials and Moyle Rovers drew that day, the replay never took place despite a number of attempts to re-fix the game. “It makes a mockery […]

7 years ago

The Kilkenny clubs have done it again. For the seventh year in a row, the Kilkenny champions have gone on to win the Leinster intermediate club hurling championship. This year, it was Graigue Ballycallan who followed county glory with a Leinster title when they defeated Portlaoise by eight points on a scoreline of 2-18 to […]

7 years ago

This time nine months ago, Samcro could do no wrong. By the time Samcro won the Ballymore Novices’ race in the Cheltenham festival in March, he’d won eight races in a row and he’d never been beaten in his national hunt racing life. The horse’s owner Michael O’Leary was even criticised for not sending his […]

7 years ago

Dunnamaggin are Leinster champions. Any club team that ever emerges from Kilkenny are a force to be reckoned with in Leinster and in the All-Ireland club and this year’s county junior champions Dunnamaggin are proving no different. The south Kilkenny village were relegated from the ever competitive intermediate championship in 2017 but it didn’t take […]

7 years ago

Do you know your club GAA? This year has been one of the best but we’re going back to the good old days. We give you a mix of club hurling and club football All-Ireland winning captains, can you name the club each of these men led to either Andy Merrigan or Tommy Moore Cup […]

7 years ago

Meath men Ronan Jones and Enda Cahill have been putting in the hard yards for a while now. On the other side of the world. The pair are in college stateside, studying finance side by side in Northeastern University in Boston but for this weekend, the studies will be put on the back burner and Boston […]

7 years ago

Make the most of it. This is the second last big club weekend of the year but what a weekend of GAA it is. In the hurling, Saturday sees the Leinster junior and intermediate finals throw-in as a double-header in Nowlan Park. The Kilkenny clubs traditionally never blink there and it’s hard to see this […]

7 years ago

Ballinameela GAA club has only 90 members. Of those 90, 45 of them have left their playing days behind them. You would think survival is the name of the game for a GAA club with only 45 playing members but Ballinameela, the small club tucked away in West Waterford are doing just fine. All things […]

7 years ago

You done messed up Jamie. There was only 20 seconds to go and Scotland were only three points behind sevens kingpins Fiji. A try and they were singing, the conversion wouldn’t even be needed to seal an unlikely victory. And that was when an opening emerged in the Fiji backline. The Scotsmen worked the ball […]

7 years ago

This wasn’t always the way for DCU hurling club. The times they have been tough for DCU hurling club over the last few years in a college where the footballers were the big dogs and the hurlers more of an afterthought. There was something brewing around though. The sticks were gathering in north Dublin and […]

7 years ago

If you care enough, you won’t have excuses. You’ll be making excuses so you can get to training and not the other way around. Eddie Brennan never had any excuses in his playing career and now as he attempts to make his mark as a manager, fundamental to it will be breeding that same kind […]

7 years ago

There’ll be no more roguery going on with with sliotars. Research from a couple of years ago revealed that, when both were pucked as far as they possibly can be, a Cummins sliotar travelled 13 yards further than an O’Neill’s one. In a game literally defined by the smallest of tiny inches, 13 yards makes […]

7 years ago

Eddie Brennan began this season playing Junior B for Graigue/Ballycallan. An injury to a key man followed by fast Eddie proving that he still has the brains and the touch bumped him back up the ranks and on Sunday in Nowlan Park, he’ll be lining out at centre forward in a Leinster final. The more […]

7 years ago

How quickly things can change. Daire Ó Baoill was in the dressing room two years ago when, after a thirteen point loss to their rivals Glenties, Gaoth Dobhair’s Kevin Cassidy decided he’d had enough of it all. Retired at 34, Cassidy felt the best thing to do was to leave a spot in the dressing […]

7 years ago

Gaoth Dobhair has gone football mad. The only talk in Gaoth Dobair these days is football talk and Daire Ó Baoill hears every word of it. The midfielder has been a driving force in his club winning their first Donegal championship since 2006 and he works in the pub where the whole parish goes to […]

7 years ago

There’s one lad who’s conning us all!

7 years ago

Robbie Keane has tunnel vision now. After spending his last few years playing in America, India and in between, Robbie Keane has announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 38. Only a couple of days ago, the Republic of Ireland’s record goalscorer was announced as part of Mick McCarthy’s management ticket as […]

7 years ago

Corofin were struggling on Sunday. Ballintubber were dominating in midfield and Corofin weren’t getting much of opportunity to go forward. When they did go forward, they looked devoid of ideas and they lacked any real direction or conviction in their play. By half-time, they’d only managed three scores with Ballintubber’s defensive set-up visibly frustrating the […]

7 years ago

They really don’t help themselves. The lack of certainty and the slap-dash nature of fixture planning makes the fixture calendar the biggest problem facing the GAA right now. Club pitches are empty in the middle of the summer because there’s no games and on the other end of the scale, inter-county players have too many […]

7 years ago

Niall Quinn was fired up on Tuesday night. And so was Brian Kerr beside him. They’re both sick and tired of watching good, young Irish players fall away from the game because there’s no place for them in Ireland to prosper and to grow. They’re both sick and tired of watching the League of Ireland […]

7 years ago

They’re taking notice of Aaron Connolly. Eventually, there came a time when they couldn’t not. The 18-year-old precarious talent from Galway has been lording it for Brighton’s under 23s in the League and in the Cup this year. A clinical striker with lots of pace, the youngster has been banging in the goals for the […]

7 years ago

O’Neill wasn’t going to let him away with that one. The night of Martin O’Neill’s parting from his role as Republic of Ireland manager and player Matt Doherty is asked what it was like to work under the Derry man in the Ireland camp. Doherty claimed it was old-school, in comparison to what he experiences […]

7 years ago

Give it your best shot. How closely do you follow the grassroots of the GAA? Are you a sunshine inter-county supporter or do you brave the elements with your wooly hat in the winter months too. If you claim to be a hardcore GAA fan, you’d want to be getting over 26 right in this […]

7 years ago

Cavan won four Ulster under-21 titles in a row between 2011 and 2014. The hope in the Breffni County was that the stars of those triumphs would become stars of the county’s senior team and lift them out of the slump that they’d been in for quite some time. It hasn’t turned out that way. […]

7 years ago

The only thing quicker than Colm Basquel is the instant impact he’s made on this club championship. Only for the 22-year-old who’s more renowned for his football skills, Ballyboden St Enda’s wouldn’t be preparing for a Leinster club hurling final and Ballyhale Shamrocks would be preparing for Coolderry instead. That’s the simple truth of it. […]

7 years ago