From Sigerson games to club games to the O’Byrne Cups of this world, it was a fair weekend of club football. Here’s the team of the weekend. 1 Paddy Flood (Naomh Eanna) Always looks for the clever kickout and though he wasn’t troubled too often by the Spidéal attack, he was ready whenever called upon. […]

7 years ago

John Horan met the question head on. It felt like a kick in the teeth for good, loyal GAA supporters when the GAA announced last week that there would be a wholesale increase in match ticket prices in 2019. Division One hurling and football league games were upped from €15 to €20. Stand tickets for […]

7 years ago

The hurling is back, the camogie is back. The Christmas dragged on a bit and the lack of hurling made it even more of a slog but three weekends into January, the club All-Ireland semis went to post, the Fitzgibbon Cup set off and the camogie leagues got going. Here’s the team of the weekend. […]

7 years ago

And it’s ramping up already. Last year’s champions UL are already up against it, Trinity College are motoring and Mary Immaculate are back in business. They say Fitzgibbon hurling is the next thing to senior and on Sunday’s evidence it’s pushing that close too. Because we were reminded, like we are on every first Fitzgibbon […]

7 years ago

Luckily for Queens, the Sigerson Cup isn’t straight knockout this year. Maynooth University 0-9 Queen’s University, Belfast 0-8 Eight time Sigerson Cup winners Queen’s University were came a cropper at the very first hurdle last year against a David Clifford inspired Tralee and were it not for a more merciful system this time around, they’d be early […]

7 years ago

He’s going, going, he’s not gone though. Approaching the last, Ask Heather looked a dead cert. After jumping the last, the horse looked beaten and its jockey Mikey Sweeney looked a goner. But the Boulta, Killeagh point to point track in County Cork was in for something heroic and the crowd were about to witness […]

7 years ago

Mary Immaculate 1-19 DIT 1-14 When the going got tough, Mary I got going. Under the shrewd guidance of Jamie Wall, the Limerick teacher training college with a student body of no more than 3000 have always punched above their weight in the Fitzgibbon Cup and in 2019, the sleeves are up again and they’re […]

7 years ago

It’s Fitzgibbon Cup time. All of the big dogs got their 2019 Fitzgibbon Cup campaigns underway on this, the third Sunday of January and it’s a beautiful reminder that a new hurling season has dawned and is upon us now There were six Fitzgibbon games from Belfield to Grangegorman and from Borrisoleigh to Waterford IT […]

7 years ago

Be yourself, but be careful. An Spidéal of Galway and Naomh Eanna of Antrim met half-way in Navan for the All-Ireland intermediate football semi-final on Sunday afternoon. For January, the pitch was in fine order with the sun scorching down on top of Páirc Tailteann. The champions of Connacht against the champions of Ulster with […]

7 years ago

Conor McCarthy loves the Sigerson Cup. Last year, the Monaghan hotshot was unplayable in the decider as he danced around NUIG defenders and kicked UCD to their first Sigerson Cup in three years. It’s that time of the year again and the dainty 22-year-old is still knocking about. This is what he lives for. UCD […]

7 years ago

UCD 5-8 CIT 0-10 UCD started slow but they finished like trains. The reigning champions were slow to get going but once they found their way, they took off and they left a threatening Cork IT team for dust in an explosive pipe opener in Belfield. It really was a tale of two halves in […]

7 years ago

Surely an evening with Conor McManus should be at the very top of this one. It’s the 50th year of Corduff GAA and the Monaghan club are marking their Golden Jubilee year in style with a Gala Ball taking place this Saturday evening at the Nuremore Hotel. With both Conor McManus and Peter Canavan confirmed […]

7 years ago

Everyone’s a winner here. Shane Horan is a serious club player in Dublin, and he has been one of Kilmacud Crokes’ main men for the last few years. If he was born anywhere else bar Dublin, he’d be a main man for his home county too but with the competition stiffer in Dubin than everywhere […]

7 years ago

The Sigerson Cup is back. This year’s Sigerson Cup got off to a flying start on Wednesday afternoon when last year’s beaten finalists NUIG were defeated on their own patch by St Mary’s after a dramatic free-kick competition. And the drama was only getting going there. Two more games took place on Wednesday evening with […]

7 years ago

Camogie players all over Ireland want the same thing. A couple of months ago, Dublin’s Eve O’Brien sewed it into the camogie association for not evolving their rules with the changing times. “The game has evolved but the rules haven’t changed,” she said in an emphatic description of the game’s restrictions. Cork’s Amy O’Connor echoed […]

7 years ago

St Mary’s 1-11 NUIG 1-11 (Mary’s win on free-kicks) St Mary’s are on the charge again. After beating all the odds to win the Sigerson Cup in 2017, the teacher training college are back at it again two years on. They’re into the second round of this year’s competition after a thrilling encounter in Galway […]

7 years ago

Nobody is safe on the Dublin team. Last year, Paddy Andrews, Kevin McMenamin and Eoghan O’Gara didn’t see the light of day in a Dublin jersey having been key players in the year’s previous. Jim Gavin is constantly on the lookout for new players who are going to freshen things up and who are going […]

7 years ago

Someone must have finally decided to build a wall around all Donegal. The only thing we can think of is that the Ulster GAA Writers’ Association watched 2018 pass them by with a pair of inter-county glasses on. And even then, too many holes exist to even come close to explaining the glaring omissions that […]

7 years ago

Players are struggling, managers are complaining, referees are under pressure. Listen, the hand pass restriction was never going to be an overnight success. For it to be given its best chance though, teams would have to spend months getting accustomed to it in training and judging by Donegal manager Declan Bonner’s comments that he hasn’t […]

7 years ago

If it’s not IT Tralee, it’s usually Cork for the Kerry boys It’s across the border but it’s a shorter trek than Dublin, Limerick or Galway and with the pick of courses for them in both CIT and  and with plenty of GAA played in both, the lads leaving the south west are few and […]

7 years ago

It would take something magical to win it. The ladies of Arsenal and Birmingham City were drawing 1-1 and the clock was just after ticking past ninety. Both sets of players looked like they had settled for the draw with extra-time on the cards. Katie McCabe hadn’t settled for anything though. The Kilnamanagh flyer was […]

7 years ago

Genuinely tough to watch. No matter what your thoughts are on Andy Murray as a person, and many base theirs’ on the untrue and unfair depiction of him as a boring, drone-like personality, there’s absolutely no denying the fact that the Scot is one of the most competitive, hard-working and genuine competitors ever to have picked […]

7 years ago

This is just great to see

7 years ago

90 minutes of hurling, 66 scores and still nothing between them. Thurles CBS and John The Baptist Community School Limerick played out a thrilling Harty Cup quarter final on Wednesday afternoon in Dundrum. A game that had everything bar a winner, the schools were tied on a scoreline of 3-31 to 4-28 after normal time […]

7 years ago

A good Laochra Gael episode is hard to beat. If you have your own dedicated Laochra Gael episode, well then you’ve made it, one way or another. That much is accepted the length and breadth of this country and with the most definitive and the most iconic GAA programme of all heading into its 15th series […]

7 years ago

“I wanted them to go home and I wanted them to feel that hurt.” Davy Fitzgerald remembers the day well, how could he possibly forget it? After edging Limerick by a single point to make it into the 2011 Munster senior hurling final, Waterford were quietly confident. They were the reigning champions and coming through […]

7 years ago

He’s still only 20 but Sean O’Shea feels it’s his time to lead. Last year was his first in the Kerry senior panel but with experienced campaigners Donaghy, O’Sullivan, Walsh and Maher having left over the winter, the bedding in period is well and truly behind him and his fellow youngsters now and the onus […]

7 years ago

Seamus Flanagan doesn’t know too many others from Limerick up in UCD. But that doesn’t bother him in the slightest. He had his mind-set on Radiography and with the south Dublin college the only university in the country that had the course on offer, he was heading up to the capital city and that was […]

7 years ago

Seamus Flanagan is just mad to get back hurling. After visiting every school in Limerick, after all the partying and after a team holiday too, the celebrations and indeed 2018 are in the rear view mirror now and what lies ahead is mucky fields and lifting weights. And Seamus Flanagan wouldn’t want it any other […]

7 years ago

They’re a rare breed nowadays. In the men’s game, dual players are a thing of the past but some ladies are still fighting the hard cause. Hannah Looney and Libby Coppinger play both camogie and football down in Cork while in Tipperary, 20-year-old Orla O’Dwyer balances the two. The Cashel club player was the Premier […]

7 years ago

When it comes to Dublin hurling, David Treacy has seen it all. It’s hard to believe it but the Cuala man is now beginning his 11th year as a Dublin senior hurler. First drafted in by Anthony Daly as a sprightly 18-year-old with golden wrists and potential to burn in 2009, Treacy hit the ground […]

7 years ago

Corofin are one of the slickest teams in the country. Ian Burke is one of the slickest players in the country. Pass and move is the Galway club’s mantra, Burke is the master. With hands granted by the gods of Gaelic football and as quick as the clappers of hell, the All-Star corner forward has […]

7 years ago

She didn’t expect it from a man of the Taoiseach’s experience. It was back in November when Leo Varadkar got a little bit cheeky. Speaking at Leaders’ Questions, the 39-year-old claimed that, in order to ensure the availability of every hospital bed over the always hectic festive period, that nurses, doctors and all of those […]

7 years ago

Michael Fennelly wishes he’d started as young himself. The Ballyhale Shamrocks man was such a mainstay in the Kilkenny hurling team for so long that it’s easy to forget how injury ravaged the latter years of his career were. He doesn’t forget though, how could he? Prior to 2012, it was nothing out of the […]

7 years ago

Liverpool rested a load of players on Monday night but so did Wolves. Matt Doherty was given a break, so was Costa, Cavaleiro and Rui Patricio. They still had Raul Jimenez, Neves and Moutinho but this wasn’t exactly Nuno Esprito Santo’s full deck. On top of that, Liverpool are the Premier League leaders, they were […]

7 years ago

Between the pair of them, Robbie Keane and Alan Shearer know a thing or two about playing as a striker. More specifically, playing with a strike partner in a 4-4-2 formation. Keane forged one of the Premier League’s most prolific partnerships when he led the line with Dimitar Berbatov during their time at Spurs. Shearer, […]

7 years ago

In fairness to Dejan Lovren, he’s played some amount of football recently. Having started and finished each and every one of Liverpool’s games over a hectic festive period, the sight of Dejan Lovren pulling up and eventually limping out of Liverpool’s FA Cup third round clash with a soft tissue injury is hardly a surprising […]

7 years ago

We all know about the Tony Kellys, the Jason Dohertys and the Kevin Morans. These lads are a part of the furniture for their counties. They’ve already proven themselves and a Connacht FBD League game or a Munster League performance won’t make or break them. It’s a completely different story for another group of players […]

7 years ago

We’re talking about their go-to side. Like the side they’d hit a free off. The side they’d cut a sideline over the bar off. Nearly all of these players are two-sided, but we’re talking predominantly here. We’re talking the side they would trust if their lives depended on it. Give it a lash and let […]

7 years ago

England v Ireland. It doesn’t matter if it’s tiddlywinks because as long as we’re up against the noisy neighbours, it’s always going to be full blooded and it’s always going to have a little bit of bite about it. The Star Sixes going on this weekend on Sky Sports carry about as much weight as […]

7 years ago

Where else would you get it? Only in the Connacht FBD League in the pits of January. Avant Card Páirc Sean Mac Diarmada was the place to be on the first Sunday of 2019 and any adult who paid a tenner and any student who paid a fiver got way more than the money’s and […]

7 years ago

We are three weekends away from the beginning of the National Leagues. The best teams and the established players are out on their holidays while the rising stars and the fringe men are trying hard to make an impression. They were in Ballinacourty, they were in Carrick-on-Shannon, they’re were in Carlow and they were everywhere […]

7 years ago

The first Sunday of 2019, a Sunday of firsts for Gaelic football. Despite trailing by eight points at one stage in the first half, the men of Leitrim showed courage, perseverance and belief in abundance in front of the diehards in Páirc Sean Mac Diarmada to level it up when it mattered most and to […]

7 years ago

The curious case of Ronan Lynch. It wasn’t that long ago when the Na Piarsaigh youngster was the hottest young talent in Limerick, when he was tipped to become a leader of the county senior hurling team for years to come and when the eagerly awaited and desperately craved return of Liam MacCarthy Shannonside would […]

7 years ago

Kellie Harrington knows the feeling well. But she has no qualms in saying that it’s not everything it’s cracked up to be. Maybe when the gloves are hung up and her days in the ring are behind her, she’ll look back on those winning days, those winning feelings with pride and appreciation, but while she’s […]

7 years ago

Is there anyone else?

7 years ago

Having spent more than three quarters of 2018 on the sidelines, it’s hardly surprising that Robbie Brady is like a dog with a bone. The feisty Dubliner picked up a nasty knee injury in December 2017 in a Premier League game against Leicester and it effectively consigned his whole 2018 to the physio table and […]

7 years ago

It wasn’t the only time they booed. It wasn’t the only time Michael Smith told them to shut up. Granted that, when you’ve no real affinity with either team or with either player, it doesn’t matter what sport it is because all every neutral is looking for is a game and some excitement. Every single […]

7 years ago

A tough week for punters, for Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott but a good week for smaller yards and for Irish racing. “You’d nearly be deeply suspicious of a lad if he told you he’d made money punting this week,” said punter and racing pundit Johnny Ward of an interesting week of Christmas racing. Trainers’ […]

7 years ago

Tuesday marked the beginning of a new year but more importantly it marked the beginning of a new dawn for Irish racing. As of January 1 2019, At The Races is a station of the past. A deal was struck midway through 2018 that saw Sky Sports Racing replace the iconic channel 415 on the Sky […]

7 years ago