Maggie Farrelly accepts that, as a GAA referee, abuse just comes with the territory. Which shows that, for all the talk about giving respect and getting respect and appreciating them and learning from rugby, as a community, and in the heat of the moment, the GAA still has an awful long way to go. Because […]

3 years ago

It was on Saturday when The Dubs’ class of 2011 met up for their ten year reunion and after all that, Cian O’Sullivan wonders where has the time gone. He was a rookie back then, the boots are hung up now. In between, there was an unprecedented and unbelievable amount of success but it’s rare […]

4 years ago

Diarmuid Lyng was in a Kilkenny pub of a Tuesday night. He thought to himself that, as a Wexford hurler, he probably shouldn’t have been there but that was when he saw the group of lads who were propping up the bar. It eased his guilty conscience when he saw them – a group of […]

4 years ago

Leitrim had a good win over London but they were never going to beat Galway. And that’s just a fact. The squad’s morale would have been high going into this Connacht semi-final, after a decent League campaign and a good start to the Championship but it’s after taking one hell of a hit now. Which […]

4 years ago

Limerick 3-21 Tipperary 0-23 De-Ja vu! For Limerick and for Tipperary. Tipperary put up a good fight in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday but, just as they did last year and just as a reminder of how good they are, Limerick turned on the taps when they needed to. And though Ger Browne was influential […]

4 years ago

Tyrone 1-14 Kerry 1-12 Mattie McGleenan told a story back in 2013 about his son Michael. Mattie was the Scotstown manager at the time and, ahead of the county final against Clontibret, the million dollar question was how are we going to stop Conor McManus. Manzy scored 1-8 against them earlier in the year and […]

4 years ago

The Laois minor hurlers had a famous win on Saturday afternoon. They’re after sending shock-waves throughout Leinster. That’s because, having beaten Kilkenny for the first time since 1974, they’ve lifted a county, they’ve blown a competition wide open and they’ve recorded a victory that will live long in the memory. It would be fair to […]

4 years ago

It’s hard to believe it that, in seven years at Manchester City, after millions upon millions of transfer splashes and with one of the best squads ever assembled, Pep Guardiola has only led the team to one Champions League final. That was last year, it was a game they lost and after yet another collapse […]

4 years ago

He was long enough a super-sub to know that there’s more enjoyment being a starter. That’s where all the glory is. Not to say that, over the course of four, five six seasons in reserve, Cormac Costello went around with a frown on his face but he always knew where he wanted to be. He’s […]

4 years ago

After a game of twists and turns and swings ended, ultimately, in a disappointing result for Galway, Brian Hanley could easily have been in bad form for a finish. He could easily have been rueing the five point lead his side threw away in extra-time and, in the heat of the moment, he could easily […]

4 years ago

Clare 0-28 Cork 2-20 Rory Hayes shakes Jack O’Connor’s hand but as far as making friends goes, that’s as pally as it’s going to get. O’Connor looks to slide away but as if to say welcome to hell, and as if to say this is how it’s going to be, Hayes pulls him back and […]

4 years ago

Galway beat Kilkenny with the last puck in Pearse Stadium and afterwards, Brian Cody prowled onto the field like a cut cat. Referee Colm Lyons had blown his whistle to signal a 1-24 to 3-17 win for the Tribesmen but he had a bit of work to do yet. That’s because the Kilkenny manager walked […]

4 years ago

Alan Brogan lives in Castleknock, his son plays for Castleknock but, handy and all as a transfer might seem, it’s not something he’s ever considered. That’s because, for the last he doesn’t know how many years of his life, Oliver Plunkett’s Eoghan Ruadh has been running through his veins. It was back in 1999 when, […]

4 years ago

Alex Ferguson looked like he’d walked up to a sink full of dirty dishes but it was just Brian Gleeson with an RTÉ microphone. As you might do, if you’d seen a sink full of dirty dishes, he turned around and went about leaving them as they were. Can’t be bothered. Get someone else to […]

4 years ago

Diarmuid Lyng looks at his watch. Show-time. It wasn’t that long ago when, as a man who gave up his job as a sideline reporter and a studio pundit for Off The Ball, he left this life behind him. That was a time when he’d had enough of Dublin’s busy ways but here he is, […]

4 years ago

Liam Sheedy saw a throw, Derek McGrath saw a hand-pass. We’re talking Patrick Curran’s pass to Michael Kiely for Waterford’s first goal in the Munster championship and if, with the aid of slowed-down and zoomed-in replays, a pair of grown men can’t come to an agreement then what hope have referees without them? All they […]

4 years ago

There’s been a 6 foot 3 inch hole in the Clare forward line for the last two years. There’s a 6 foot 3 inch bucking bronco of a blockbuster in the Clare forward line this year. It’s good to have Duggan back. It was a monumental blow for the Banner in November 2019 when, as […]

4 years ago

Clare 3-21 Tipperary 2-16 The Tipperary supporters couldn’t believe their eyes. There was a half an hour gone in the first half of this do-or-die Munster championship game and if you took out its first ten minutes, their team had only scored one point. Clare managed 2-7 in that same period of time and really, […]

4 years ago

Aaron Gillane doesn’t want to hear about Waterford or the League or anything else. He has a one-track-mind and, as far as the next two months go, it’s only concern is winning another All-Ireland title for Limerick. The rest, as far as he can see, is outside noise, it’s unnecessary riff-raff that, inside the minds […]

4 years ago

Of all the players he’s ever seen and played with and played against, never in his life has Alan Kerins come across a better one than Michael Donnellan. It’s funny how it all started. Michael Donnellan and his brother John left the Galway panel on the week of the 2001 Connacht quarter-final against Leitrim because, […]

4 years ago

It was some night for Sligo GAA. Sligo won their first ever Connacht under-20 title on Wednesday evening and, having lost nine finals in the grade, it felt like a barrier being knocked and it was as sweet as it gets. A late and fortuitous goal from their inspirational captain Jack Lavin was enough to […]

4 years ago

Jason Forde scored 0-6 from play in the first half that day. Kilkenny were the last team to beat Limerick in the championship back in 2019 and since then, the biggest fright John Kiely’s team got was from Tipperary. That was in last year’s Munster final and it was a day when, with Jason Forde […]

4 years ago

Kyle Hayes went right and two Cork defenders went left. It was a mistake, it was unfortunate, it was only a moment in time but, in many ways, it was symptomatic of how Cork hurled on Sunday and how they’ve been hurling for the last two years. And that’s not a derogatory comment. As All-Ireland […]

4 years ago

“The room up there was very busy, Derek was throwing balls at me all day.” A Tipp man and a Waterford man walked into a studio and, after a day when their counties went head-to-head, they didn’t agree on too much. Liam Sheedy felt that, for Michael Kiely’s goal, Patrick Curran was guilty of throwing […]

4 years ago

New York died but they died with their boots on. And after one of the frights of their life, after a game where very little went for them, you can take it as a fact that the whole of Sligo were counting their lucky blessings this morning. To their credit, they came out of this […]

4 years ago

Limerick 2-25 Cork 1-16 Cork got off to the perfect start, they had a goal after 15 seconds and they had the Páirc Uí Chaoimh crowd behind them but none of that mattered. Because after all that, and for the third championship game in a row, Limerick devoured them like a man would a boy. […]

4 years ago

Waterford 2-24 Tipperary 2-20 It’s always Aussie. If he’s not the best in the world, he’s the worst in the world. If it’s not a sideline, a sky-scraping catch or a tap on the back then, as the old saying goes, well, it’s a kick in the back-side. It’s something silly that nobody else would […]

4 years ago

Rory McCarthy remembers the O’Connor boys from the summer camps. That’s because he remembers them taking lumps out of one another. There was Jack and Rory and Joe and Barry and the list goes on and if there was one thing they all had in common it was that they never held back. There’d be […]

4 years ago

It’s disappointing for the Clare under-20s that, for the second week in a row, they let a winning position slip against a team they wouldn’t have been fancied to beat. Cathal O’Neill was the man who broke Banner hearts last week when, having led by three points deep into injury time, the Limerick forward turned […]

4 years ago

Believe it or not, Kellie Harrington is happy to see us. The last few days have been full of questions about the dress, the cake, the hair and the shoes – Oh my God, the shoes – but, on the back of her wedding to long-term girlfriend Mandy Loughlin, that’s the last thing Kellie wants […]

4 years ago

Shane Lowry and Brian ‘Bo’ Martin were shoulder to shoulder on the 18th green in Augusta on Saturday night. It wasn’t their best day at the office but it wasn’t their worst either and by the end of it, they stood together united. And that should be enough to shut the do-gooders up. But as […]

4 years ago

Sam Waley-Cohen announced on Friday morning that, after a marvellous career, he was going to retire on Saturday. Win, lose or fall, he was going to retire after riding his father’s horse, Noble Yeats, in the Aintree Grand National.  They say that, in sport, fairytales don’t come true but if this wasn’t a fairytale then […]

4 years ago

The posts were shaking and the ball wouldn’t sit still but, inside, the dome was empty. Funny one that. The Galway and Mayo under-20s have had a fierce rivalry in the last couple of years and, on a wet and windy night in Bekan, Wednesday’s semi-final turned into another slog of an arm-wrestle. It was […]

4 years ago

Eamonn Murray doesn’t see the good in AFLW, as a spectacle and as a sport. The Meath ladies football manager think it’s “dreadful stuff to watch,” and says there’s “no skill at all” in the game. A host of Irish ladies footballers have headed Down Under in recent times to pursue a career in the […]

4 years ago

Diarmuid Murtagh did brilliantly and that shouldn’t be forgotten but, as far as the defending goes, that was shocking from Galway. It was absolutely shocking and while they don’t need anyone to tell them that but, make no mistake about it, someone has told them exactly that. It could have been John Divilly, it could […]

4 years ago

Orla O’Dwyer has become the first Irish woman to be named on the AFLW All-Australian team of the year. The Tipperary star was a powerful presence in the Brisbane Lions team for a second year in a row and, on the back of her performances, was among the 21 players who were given the distinguished […]

4 years ago

The only difference between forwards and backs, as Darran O’Sullivan will tell you, is that forwards are that little bit cuter. They’re cute as foxes and, as many long-suffering defenders will tell you, they’re nowhere near as innocent as they let onto be. O’Sullivan himself has asked defenders, among other things, if they’re enjoying the […]

4 years ago

Padraig O’Hora is being called all sorts of names because he, you guessed it, called David Clifford all sorts of names. There’s an irony in there somewhere. But just because he chatted a bit of nonsense and gave a bit of lip doesn’t mean that he’s, as many people are saying, a bad skin. O’Hora […]

4 years ago

Tipperary went down fighting and Mark Russell fought until he had no more to give. He led the fight for Tipperary and he brought the fight to Cavan who, in the end, only held on with the help of a bit of fortune and with the edges of their finger-tips to win this Division Four […]

4 years ago

Kerry 3-19 Mayo 0-13 If we learned anything today it’s that, joining a long list of other failed containment plans, mouthing is not the thing that’s going to stop David Clifford. Neither are hypnosis techniques or attempts to rip his jersey because, after yet another outrageous display in Croke Park, it seems that things like […]

4 years ago

Waterford 4-20 Cork 1-23 Ciaran Joyce gives a pass that the Cork crowd hate with a passion. It’s all oohs and aahs and aw Jesus,’ ‘would ya stop the Jesus messing?’ The ball is floating across the goals in such a precarious way that, somewhere in the country, there’s an under-12 coach on the verge […]

4 years ago

Paddy Keenan would love to be playing under Mickey Harte. Not as much as Mickey Harte would love to be managing Paddy Keenan. To have his left foot and his right, to have his vision, his passing, his speed and the skill that, from 2003 to 2014, nobody in a red and white jersey and […]

4 years ago

Troy Parrott knows that, even though he’s just 20 years of age, the years won’t be long slipping by. Football is a young man’s game and, with time on his side, he knows that now is the time to make shapes. It’s a good job he does because, with Ireland in need of a goalscorer, […]

4 years ago

The GPA are continuing their protest over expenses and, as a result, some players and managers aren’t doing interviews. Darragh Fitzgibbon, for example, was the only player who gave a televised interview after last weekend’s round of games though it seems he did so by mistake. As confirmed to us by the GPA, Fitzgibbon was […]

4 years ago

Eamon McGee remembers Donegal’s 2014 All-Ireland quarter final against Armagh. How could he forget it? It was a tight, tense affair and, like many of the clashes between these two counties, it was never too far from boiling over. It was just on the stroke of half-time that day when, with Aidan Forker and Karl […]

4 years ago

It was a sickening end to the game for Offaly but the rules are the rules, you’d have to say. And when it comes to goalkeepers getting a pass-back from the player they kicked the ball out to, the rule is that, if the goalkeeper plays that ball, a free is awarded from the 13 […]

4 years ago

Waterford 5-20 Wexford 0-16 Mark Fanning gave the first puck-out away so for the second one, Aussie Gleeson was onto him. Onto him like a mouse on a fly. He dawdled over in that classic, languid style of his as if to tell Fanning that, if he wanted it, he had all the time in […]

4 years ago

The Hurling for Hope convoy is in full swing. It won’t be too long before they land in Roscommon town. ‘Hurling for Hope’ is a fundraising event that, having started in Castlebar on Wednesday, concludes in Roscommon town today. In between, a group of friends, players mentors and teammates from Ballyhaunis GAA have been walking […]

4 years ago

Zach Tuohy, Portlaoise’s proudest son. And that’s not just for his sporting achievements. The Geelong Cats player showed what a gentleman he is on Friday when, after a fan ran into him, losing his phone and keys in the process, Tuohy picked them up and returned them. He bore no grudges with the over-zealous fan, […]

4 years ago

Paddy Christie doesn’t watch much football these days, doesn’t have the time, but he did watch the Hogan Cup final. And, like the rest of us, he enjoyed every second of it. It was Gaelic football minus the caution, free from the blankets and without even a hint of the dilly dallying and, for a […]

4 years ago