There’s no macho showmanship, no complaining…Conor Whelan just shuts up and plays. He often has good grounds for complaining too, with defenders prodding and poking at him out of pure desperation, but prodding and poking won’t stop Conor Whelan, he doesn’t even notice it. Conor Whelan is so focused on the game itself and try […]

5 years ago

Seven goals, 41 points, nothing between them…the Joe McDonagh Cup is where its at. Carlow and Antrim played out a thrilling 5-16 (31) to 2-25 (31) draw in the second round of the Joe McDonagh Cup on Saturday evening, in a game that outshone some of the big provincial clashes taking place elsewhere. Netwatch Cullen […]

5 years ago

Big players make big plays. Twice, in this Ulster Championship preliminary quarter-final, Cavan players stepped up with incredible individual scores right at the death, to turn this game on its head. First, to cap off a seven point comeback in normal time, wing back Gerard Smith lashed one off the outside of his right boot […]

5 years ago

Line ’em up knock ’em down.

5 years ago

From the east coast of America to the Hills of Donegal. Jim McGuinness is home now, home for the foreseeable and for the first time in a long time, Donegal’s most celebrated son is not sure what comes next. For Sky Sports, he’ll analyse the 2020 championship but in the grand scheme, he’s on the […]

5 years ago

Cut loose.

5 years ago

As the confines of the first lock-down closed in, Ciaran Kilkenny became a shining light for GAA kids the length and breadth. Starting off in March with a skills demo from his back garden, the Castleknock club man powered on until May, coaching over 45 different skills across hurling and football in the mean-time. Not […]

5 years ago

The youngsters in the Mayo squad appear to have re-invigorated him, his new business venture has him excited. A Tuesday morning on Zoom and Cillian O’Connor is in flying form, calling journalists by name and meeting each question, even my silly ones, with a considered and detailed response. You’d almost forget that Mayo were relegated […]

5 years ago

You come at the king, you’d better not miss. When Conor McKenna and Michael Murphy collided in Ballybofey two weeks ago, not many would have fancied the AFL star. Through pure instinct if nothing else, it’s usually a case of man against boy when Murphy’s around. But the Tyrone man nailed him so good, that […]

5 years ago

Sean O’Shea isn’t even entertaining the notion that this championship could somehow be stopped in its tracks. With Cork on the horizon, the Kenmare man has tunnel vision and while the dreaded ‘C’ word has darkened all around us, his only focus is on the light. “I’d be confident that it’ll go ahead,” he says […]

5 years ago

Pump it up

5 years ago

As a big, burly bulwark, Gearoid Hegarty deceives you. Pushing on 6 ft 5 with shoulders the width of mart gates, it’d be very to bracket him as a powerhouse, a physical specimen who throws his weight around and gets in the way. He’ll give you nothing easy alright, and it’s a long way to […]

5 years ago

For the first time this millennium, Mayo have been relegated to Division Two football. In a turn of the tables from last weekend, Tyrone were inspired and Mayo were the ones subdued. The price they’ll pay is a loss of pride, as that distinguished status leaves them, but the more pressing concern for sure will […]

5 years ago

The Allianz League has seen more memorable finales… In an ending that summed up just how much the 2020 Leagues were diluted by the coronavirus pandemic, victorious Kerry captain David Clifford didn’t even bother with a victory speech. A quick trophy lift and he was off, off to stretch down alongside his teammates with their […]

5 years ago

On Grand final day, we gift you an AFL special

5 years ago

The most sickening thing for Katie Power is that for the first time in a long time, there was nothing holding her back. All through 2019, an awkward finger fracture got progressively worse to the extent that she’s now had three surgeries, a finger fused and a bone taken out of her hand. Playing on […]

5 years ago

Since his championship debut in 2009, Paudie Maher hasn’t missed a game for his county, making 49 championship starts in a row. Indeed, renowned GAA statistician Leo McGeough has it that the Thurles Sarsfields man has only been absent for 26 minutes of championship hurling over the course of his career. Avoiding injuries is one […]

5 years ago

Way back when, as the first lockdown was beginning to lift, golf courses all over Ireland experienced a boom of incoming members. The GAA was gone, the Premier League was out of season but golf courses, they were the saving grace. And so from all walks of life, they headed for the first tee. With […]

5 years ago

Lockdown 1.0 was grim enough… how about a second one? Refreshing, peaceful and reinvigorating were the buzz-words first time around. By now, with the October mornings darkening and the evenings closing in, the buzz has well and truly worn away. There’s only so much finding oneself a single person can do. Tony Kelly remembers the […]

5 years ago

“You’d just get up in the morning and go for a little walk and listen to a bit of mass there, the local priest used to say it online…” A good morning is half the day done and wouldn’t Cian Lynch’s start set you up? Lock-down or no lock-down, the head is clear and the […]

5 years ago

Passing the ball, Ciaran McDonald could write the bible on it. The legendary Crossmolina figure didn’t just pass it you see, he did it with grace, poise and above all, he did it with a post man’s accuracy too. That’s why he’s idolised all over this country, it’s why the good people of Mayo were […]

5 years ago

Sport is back! And it feels so good

5 years ago

Focus the mind and the score will follow.

5 years ago

A rocky start to the rocky road. Running off the rest of this inter-county season was never going to be straight forward and on our first day back, the GAA have been given a haunting reminder of the testing times that lie ahead. Down in Division Three, Leitrim and Down’s round six clash in Newry […]

5 years ago

What’s another year? The whole world has turned upside down in 2020 but amid the chaos, the fixture problems that haunt women’s GAA remain the same. All resilience and staying power. Just in keeping with some sort of normality, the Camogie Association and the LGFA found themselves at loggerheads once more with Championship season looming. […]

5 years ago

Despite noticing a change in the national mood in recent days, Offaly GAA chairman Michael Duignan is adamant that the Championships can still go ahead. A logistical nightmare is how he describes inter-county training and games in the current climate but Duignan feels that it will all be worthwhile if all stakeholders can work together […]

5 years ago

To Pat Spillane, a medal is a medal is a medal. And a Championship win, is a championship won. The charismatic Kerryman won eight All-Ireland senior medals over the course of an illustrious career with Kerry. He won club championships, both senior with Thomond College and junior with his home parish of Templenoe and while […]

5 years ago

Chasing a ball around was his life, it was his escape and it was the identity he was comfortable with. For a young and insecure Jason Sherlock, sport was a sanctuary. Unease about his heritage and his appearance tamed him otherwise but on the field, there was a sense of belonging. “When the colour of […]

5 years ago

An October night, Liam Cahill had recently been confirmed as the Waterford hurling manager for the coming season. As the team captain, a 3-time All-Star and a player hardly over the hill at 30, Noel Connors, you’d have imagined, was one of the few players that could have considered themselves immune to the shake-up that […]

5 years ago

Funny how things go. 2012 and a whippersnapper Davy Glennon made his Galway debut at Cusack Park against Westmeath, only to be taken off after a 14 minute cameo which he describes as ‘cat.’ Almost a decade on and the Galway man has now switched allegiances to Westmeath, with his debut for the Lake County […]

5 years ago

A winter All-Ireland is a new one, but Brendan Maher is just delighted to have something to look forward to, a breath-taking escape from this humdrum reality. He’s a competitor, first and foremost, and though a large portion of the non-playing population persist to argue that we’d be better served ‘leaving the championships off for […]

5 years ago

Don’t leave it behind you.

5 years ago

Some say that it’s a ‘cruel’ way to end it. But a game has to end some way and you can try telling Mark Collins or any of his Castlehaven teammates that a penalty shoot-out isn’t a fair way to decide it. After more than 90 minutes of pulsating football in Páirc Uí Rinn last […]

5 years ago

Go out there and give it helter skelter

5 years ago

201 days going strong.

5 years ago

Peter Duggan. Colm Galvin. John Conlon. Podge Collins… You’d be forgiven for thinking we were on our way to naming the Clare forward line for their Munster Championship first round clash against Limerick at the end of this month. In reality, these are the key men new manager Brian Lohan must do without, as a […]

5 years ago

On the line looking in was how it ended, Derek Savage hadn’t envisaged it any other way. At the beginning of the year you see, the idea was not to play but to manage. By the end, he was a county championship winning player manager. A threatening half forward on the Cortoon Shamrocks team, scoring […]

5 years ago

22-years of age. 1-9 to your name. Captaining your club to their first ever county senior title… It really doesn’t get any better than that and on a wet, windy Sunday in Salthill, Moycullen’s Dessie Conneely lived the dream. “It’s the greatest day of my life,” he said triumphantly afterwards, as the people of Moycullen […]

5 years ago

In Cork, Donegal and Laois, the football championships are up in the air. Same goes for the senior hurling in Offaly. Club GAA activity, at all levels, has been suspended with immediate effect as a result of the rise in Covid-19 cases across Ireland. The GAA made the decision on Monday afternoon, pointing to ‘post […]

5 years ago

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

5 years ago

All the best.

5 years ago

Give it the va va vooooom.

5 years ago

Filippo Giovagnoli’s got this, and that’s all Dundalk fans need to know. When the inexperienced Italian was appointed as the Lilywhites manager in August, there were plenty of scoffs, eye-rolls and dissenting voices. A month, 3 European wins and a drastic upturn in fortunes later and the town have qualified for the group stages of […]

5 years ago

8 years is a crazy amount of time to go unbeaten in a county championship and Corofin were long overdue an ‘off-day’ in Galway club football. But according to Ray Silke, this off day has been coming upon them fast with the mighty Corofin team showing signs of vulnerability in recent seasons as almost half […]

5 years ago

Having spent the year managing Kerry junior club side Listry, Marc Ó Sé has felt the benefits of the 2020 ‘split season,’ and reckons it’s something the GAA should base their calendar around in the years to come. More certainty for club players. More balance for county players. More opportunities for club managers. A better […]

5 years ago

Pump it up.

5 years ago

For almost 30 years now, Davy Fitzgerald has been flat to the mat on the GAA’s non-stop treadmill. Doing it for Clare, doing it for Sixmilebridge. Doing it as a player and now as a manager. It’s consumed him since he was young, inspired him for as long as he can remember and before the […]

5 years ago

It’s win-or-bust, make-or-break. On Thursday next, Stephen Kenny’s Ireland side will face into their most important test yet, with their Euro 2020 hopes on the line in Bratislava where they take on Slovakia in the play-off semi-final. On the back of a pair of underwhelming showings against Bulgaria and Finland, Kenny will be hoping for […]

5 years ago

Championship Sundays can go one of two ways, mourning or jubilation. In Loughmore-Castleiney, they’ve had two grief-filled Mondays. This day last week was raw, it was painful and it was despondent, as the wounds from Bryan McLougheny’s last gasp salvo cut their way around the mid-Tipperary parish. The manner of the defeat was almost unbelievably […]

5 years ago

Not many would have tipped Lisdowney to win the ever-competitive Kilkenny intermediate hurling championship…and that might just be the understatement of the year. But from the blue, the forgotten men of Kilkenny hurling have bolted and they’re in dreamland now. Next year, they’ll rub shoulders with Ballyhale, James Stephens, Tullaroan and the rest of the […]

5 years ago