Páidi Ó Sé gave his nephew Marc lots of helpful advice but one piece stands out. The west Kerry car was full at the time so Páidí arranged Marc’s lift to training with none other than Seamus Moynihan. And the Kerry manager told the youngster to watch, and learn. “The west Kerry car was full-up,” […]

6 years ago

Brought to you by Momenti Pizza from Dr. Oetker If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Brought to you by Momenti Pizza from Dr. Oetker Dr. Oetker’s new Momenti Pizza is a small, great-tasting frozen pizza. The two flavours – Tomato, Mozzarella & Pesto and Salami Calabrase – contain up to 450 calories. They are just […]

6 years ago

What in the name of God went on, in the hurling year of 1998? Well to begin with, you’ll need time. Being good with names will do no harm either. And a good attention span is a must. How are you fixed now? Babs, Bond and Cooney are some of the main ones. Chalk ’em […]

6 years ago

The Dubs against the rest. 1 Rory Beggan (Monaghan) His kick-outs are drilled to chest with laser-like accuracy and it doesn’t matter whether his targets are close or far away – it’s all the same to him. He’s also a decent shot-stopper. As a keeper, he has it all. 2 Chris Barrett (Mayo) Water-tight. 3 […]

6 years ago

Brought to you by Momenti Pizza from Dr. Oetker It’s not easy out there. Brought to you by Momenti Pizza from Dr. Oetker Dr. Oetker’s new Momenti Pizza is a small, great-tasting frozen pizza. The two flavours – Tomato, Mozzarella & Pesto and Salami Calabrase – contain up to 450 calories. They are just the right size for a quick […]

6 years ago

For the last five years, there has been no Ulster county playing top level hurling. But things have been going downhill for a long time before that. Neil McManus references 2005, when it was decided that the winners of the Ulster hurling championship would no longer go straight through to the All-Ireland quarter final. From […]

6 years ago

“It has no place in our grounds or in supporting Cork teams…” In 2017, the then Cork county board chairman Ger Lane came out strongly against the flying of the Confederate flag at Cork GAA games. “The Cork county board ask people to refrain to bring it to any ground in the future,” he said […]

6 years ago

Up in Glenswilly, Michael Murphy just wants to get back at it. Back out on to Páirc Naomh Columba, back to kick a few points and back to the place where he belongs. For more than three months now, GAA grounds this island over have been closed. Gates locked and pitches empty. For almost a […]

6 years ago

This is not a difficult edition.

6 years ago

You could run all day but if you can’t get to the ball first… Distance running is booming in Ireland like never before but with a GAA season finally in sight, it’s time for the players to ditch the road running for the sprinting. There’s a big difference between a 5k run and a 60/70 […]

6 years ago

Down the line, David Garland could see himself becoming a referee. “If the wages were good,” he reasons. For now, the Donaghmoyne dazzler is a Monaghan senior footballer and a part-time umpire. A full-time PE and Biology student in DCU and an occasional employee of Seamus McEnaney’s, a barman in Foley’s pub on Merrion Row. […]

6 years ago

Are you mastering these yet?

6 years ago

Easy does it. The subtle dig always appealed to Eamon McGee more than the elaborate and the well thought out. On Thursday’s GAA Hour, the Gaoth Dobhair man joined Wooly to talk the art of the trash talk. And there was plenty to talk about. The early 2000s were a bleak time for Donegal football. […]

6 years ago

Get the thinking caps on.

6 years ago

Brought to you by Horse Racing Ireland – Every Racing Moment Horse racing’s BACK. The struggle is over, it seems. Those long, lonely and sport-less days of March, April and May are behind us because coming up on the outside, ready to fill that crushing void of a world without competitive sport, are the summer colours […]

6 years ago

There are a mix of jaw-breakers and gimmees in here today.

6 years ago

As Tiger Woods might say, conditions are really tough out there.

6 years ago

Michael Cleary is asked about the one that got away from Tipperary hurling, he replies, ‘don’t forget Gortnahoe-Glengoole.’ Some scorched sod on the Tipperary-Kilkenny border and the Gortnahoe-Glengoole intermediates are warming up for a mid-Tipp championship game. Michael Cleary pushing 30, is one of the senior members of the team and he pairs up with […]

6 years ago

Since a young age, Joseph O’Brien has lived a life in horse-racing. His grandad trained, his mother trained and his father is one of the most successful horse trainers in the world. Growing up on the family yard, tagging along to race meetings, Joseph was born into it and his grá for the game wasn’t […]

6 years ago

For years, Aidan O’Shea has been Mayo’s leader by example. The only difference now is that their totem of power and consistency, their beating heart and driving force, has the title to go along with it too. It’s hard to believe that in 11 years on the Mayo panel and after more than 130 appearances […]

6 years ago

At the age of ten, your standard youngster might be learning how to kick for a score. Or practicing how to solo the ball properly, at a stretch maybe. For a young Declan Browne, it was a different game. It’s hardly any surprise that Browne, one of the most feared and respected forwards of his […]

6 years ago

The very best of luck.

6 years ago

Most GAA heroes are welcoming. That’s what makes them heroes. Pat Critchley The flowing curly locks and the Nike Air Max…looks can be deceiving but Pat Critchley is everything you imagined him to be. Cool as a March breeze, he strolls into O’Moore Park, Portlaoise – his kingdom – ready to knock you down with […]

6 years ago

Brian Fenton is one of the best fielders in the country. Yet when Dublin faced Kildare in the 2017 Leinster final, the Raheny giant had no answer for Kevin Feely, the former Charlton centre half turned dynamic Kildare midfielder, who won nine out of the 12 kick-outs the pair contested that Sunday. This was no […]

6 years ago

In the words of Delia Smith, let’s be having you.

6 years ago

Seanie Flood would spend the day farming. He’d have a few bottles of Lucozade in the tractor, smoke a few fags and he might eat a bag of crisps too. Meanwhile, Liam Griffin was plotting Wexford’s rise, leaving nothing to chance with a monumental training regime, some psychology exercises and a trailer load of stats. […]

6 years ago

Cometh the hour, cometh the quiz champion.

6 years ago

Brian Donnelly was once described as the ‘nearest thing to Georgie Best with a hurl.’ Those are words of the highest praise, from a Connacht Tribune reporter way back when, but that’s a measure of just how gifted the Ballycastle forward was. And while Donnelly was so often the star of the Saffron show, the […]

6 years ago

“I think you can’t… we can’t overstate the skill this fella has.” From the very minute Shane Walsh burst onto the Galway scene in 2014, he’s been tipped for big things. With pace to burn and a seemingly limitless set of footballing skills to match, the Kilkerrin-Clonberne ace has it all going for him. Fresh […]

6 years ago

“If you wanted to go dirty, they’d go dirty with you. If you wanted to hurl, they’d hurl as well.” It’s rare that a player is able to master both sides of the game but Henry Shefflin and Eoin Kelly were complete forwards, according to JJ Delaney. Upon closer inspection, there are plenty more similarities […]

6 years ago

In London, a former Kildare captain ducks and dives in between the crowds. The GAA is becoming increasingly popular among global audiences, and it’s hardly any surprise that a fella with three years worth of county minor experience behind him, has reached status celebrity. They’re asking for selfies, it comes with the territory for a […]

6 years ago

Get the thinking cap on.

6 years ago

58 days in. By God.

6 years ago

Gaelic footballer develops a grá for American football. Standard. Buys himself a few pigskins online, gets the kicking going with the oval ball. Still…nothing out of the ordinary. But soon, it is out of the ordinary. That Gaelic footballer’s grá grows to the extent it isn’t long before he’s down at his local GAA pitch […]

6 years ago

Apologies about yesterday’s quiz.

6 years ago

Are you ready to rumble?

6 years ago

From 1997 to 2001, Jamesie O’Connor was out on his own in a land of hurling glory. In the space of five years, O’Connor won almost every honour there was to win in hurling, with Clare at the top table and with St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield illuminating the club scene. Hurler of the Year in Clare’s […]

6 years ago

When you lead by example, words are an unnecessary luxury. Match-day and in the Kilkenny dressing room, JJ Delaney is happy in his own skin. Has a scan of the programme, a yawn maybe and a chat with the fella sitting down beside him. That’s all that’s needed. While some players like to share their […]

6 years ago

For almost a decade of Peter Canavan’s career, from under-12 all the way up to minor, he played no championship football. A dispute in the parish we now know as Errigal Ciarán lasted for nine years and meant that youngsters and fully fledged senior players alike, missed out not only on the chance to represent […]

6 years ago

It’s a spicy one today.

6 years ago

Do your worst.

6 years ago

What’s the difference between David Beggy and Mick Lyons? How long have you got? The helpful Summerhill secretary tells you there’s no point in texting Mick. Mick doesn’t do texts. You text Beggy, who wonders if it will be WhatsApp or Facetime. Different strokes. When David Beggy was first called onto the Meath panel aged […]

6 years ago

For Tommy Walsh, it was St Kieran’s College or an unhappy student. The famous hurling academy is a bit of a trek from Tullaroan, 15 kilometres into the city to be exact, but having seen the records and heard the stories, this hurler had his mind set. “My mother wanted me to go to a […]

6 years ago

Give it a lash.

6 years ago

How Olympic are you feeling today?

6 years ago

The fact that a distinction is being made between the levels of physical contact in rugby and in the GAA, is guaranteed to raise eye-brows. Scrums, rucks and mauls. Lingo associated with the oval ball, but if you listen close enough to Michael Duignan or to Darragh Maloney on a summer Sunday, you’ll be left […]

6 years ago

Tearing after footballs in Buncrana GAA pitch has given Oisin O’Flaherty a fair grounding. He still has nightmares about losing the Ulster junior final against Monaghan side Blackhill last winter, when as club captain, he was inches away from lifting the Ulster title. GAA training is tough and mental strength is a must, but not […]

6 years ago

It’s taken a shut-up shop and some first-time hurling to bring us here. But what a beautiful place to be. Wexford hurling, colourful memories and fearless beginnings. As the 2000s gradually slipped into black and amber nightmares for the born again, you’d almost forget there was a time when this expressive cult saw nothing worth […]

6 years ago

Some players thrive off the atmosphere. The roars of the crowd get them going, the hum in the air gets the hair standing. Having been on edge all week, the appreciative cheers of their supporters can boost the confidence, help them settle into a game. But for others, much like a training session, it’s tunnel […]

6 years ago

Did the questions suit you today?

6 years ago