Stephen Cluxton changed the game forever. The idea that you could be guaranteed possession with every single kickout seems so simple now but it wasn’t until Cluxton and his vision, his skill, his nerve and unmatchable consistency redefined the goalkeeping position. Over 17 years later and a Monaghan man is threatening to do the same. […]

8 years ago

16 events to choose from on Saturday alone – most of them you can plan through the whole day to compliment each other. We haven’t even offered an exhaustive list. There’s cricket, there’s more rugby, there’s a Rangers game and other football matches if it tickles your fancy. There’s even college basketball. But here’s the […]

8 years ago

At some stage, everyone is going to have to stop ignoring Galway. Yes, maybe they could be more attacking and get more out of Comer and Walsh and Armstrong – maybe they should design a system around their offensive strengths and maybe teams will be ready for them in the championship. You can say all […]

8 years ago

The black card isn’t the problem. It’s the application of the rules. By the 74th minute of the 2017 All-Ireland football final, Dublin had already used up their full quota of substitutions. After that, after six subs, the rules state that any player issued with a black card cannot be replaced – it’s as good […]

8 years ago

Too little are doing it

8 years ago

Serious discipline

8 years ago

It was still a fine kick, Mayo still deserve serious credit for their sheer bottle and stubbornness but imagine the injustice Declan Bonner and Donegal must feel. The soreness of being relegated from Division One will hurt more for the men from the hills because of how they lost three games by a single point […]

8 years ago

The bare stats are sobering. Dublin won five out of five at the start of the league campaign. Stephen Cluxton got rested up and now they’ve drawn one and lost one out of their two games since. Everyone knows how important he is – he’s one of the greatest footballers of all time and he’s […]

8 years ago

And, just like that, they’re back. Don’t be surprised if you see an influx of cranes into Cavan this week because the boom is very much back for Breffni football. It was a short recession, the damage was minimal and the good times are here once more. Cavan will return to Division One football in […]

8 years ago

In 2014, Derry contested the National Football League Division One final. After finishing second in the regular season table, beating Dublin at Celtic Park, they overcame Mayo with just 14 men in the semi-finals before falling to the capital in the decider. In 2015, they were still playing Division One but the decline was beginning. […]

8 years ago

Now behold the stubbornness of the most stubborn team in all of sport. Mayo have survived in Division One with the last kick of the game off the weaker foot of Kevin McLoughlin all the way from downtown. Having trailed Donegal from the 22nd minute – 51 whole minutes – Stephen Rochford and the men […]

8 years ago

This is why some people call it the greatest game on earth. Whatever about it being the fastest field sport on the planet, the level of skill and composure and practice required to execute some of the stick work you see at the highest level is breathtaking at times. Tipperary advanced to the National League […]

8 years ago

It’s been a tough five weeks for Con O’Callaghan. It’s been dark. Strange. Cruel, even. For five weeks he has toiled and known pure misery. For five weeks he has paid his dues and paid them again never knowing if there’d be any return, never to know if his day would ever come. But for […]

8 years ago

When Lee Chin first met Davy Fitzgerald, he knew straight away that his county had been taken over by a man simply obsessed with hurling. Even coming in from a different set-up and past hurts, the new manager was breathing a fireball of energy into Wexford Park and the players he would deem lucky enough […]

8 years ago

Rory O’Connor shoots, Rory O’Connor scores. There are people on the pitch… they think it’s all over… it is now no, wait, it’s just a young lad swiping a sliotar for himself. Wexford Park. The home of some of hurling’s greats. The place that David Fitzgerald has rocking on its hinges as he threatens to […]

8 years ago

Is fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste. That’s what they say but perhaps it’s firstly better to teach people Gaeilge before they can dabble in broken Gaeilge. So, whilst TG4 is an integral part of Irish society, preserving and spreading the language, celebrating Irish culture and, when it comes to GAA, putting on some of […]

8 years ago

It seems that, with the vast majority of talented sportspeople in Ireland, there’s a tale of a club or a sport that missed out on them. Some of the country’s soccer players could’ve been Gaelic football stars. Some of the rugby players could’ve been hurlers. And some of the best GAA names could well have […]

8 years ago

Ryan Cassidy has just turned 17 and his rise is getting more and more exciting. The St. Kevin’s Boys product has been ripping it up in the English underage leagues with Watford and, just eight months after joining the London club as a first year scholar, he’s signed a two-year professional contract which will keep […]

8 years ago

You don’t get more Irish than the Furlongs. From farming in Campile to beating New Zealand with Ireland and the Lions before winning the country’s third ever Grand Slam, it’s been a heck of a few years for Tadhg Furlong. In his own words, he never set out to be a professional rugby player but, […]

8 years ago

This is what a team looks like. With all the noise and controversy swirling around the outside, a good team stays focused within their inner circle. They stay focused on the stuff they are in control of and the rest of it is just noise, irrelevant noise that they can do nothing about. There’s no […]

8 years ago

Thou shall not pass. Tadhg Furlong in a number three jersey is a frightening nightmare for many a sportsman. On a Lions tour, in an Ireland strip and for Leinster, the idea of running into that brick wall would have any yard-gainers sitting on a toilet for a week before the game. On the GAA […]

8 years ago

Kieran McGeeney and Armagh won’t give two monkeys about what anyone thinks this morning. They won’t care about what’s written in the media, they won’t care about who’s complaining about a low-scoring draw with Fermanagh and they certainly won’t give a toss about the PA system. The Orchard county are back in Division Two and […]

8 years ago

His rise came from nowhere

8 years ago

The GPA has resurfaced. Too often accused of being compromised because of its relationship with the GAA, and too often watching on as the newly-formed CPA tries to make things better for players, the GPA was starting to lose its identity. It helps some county players with grants and welfare support but, on the actual […]

8 years ago

Andy Moran is being accused of an alleged barge of Maurice Deegan on Sunday. The Mayo player was black-carded after the incident, presumably for ‘remonstrating with a match official’ but both the referee and footballer of the year touched hands after he was issued off. The infraction has seen a number of GAA fans return […]

8 years ago

Whisper it, but there’s a chance that Rory McIlroy is back. Again. The Hollywood native stormed to Arnold Palmer Invitational success in Florida on Sunday night and took the shares of a nifty $8,900,000 purse. Ahead of the Masters on April 5, McIlroy claimed his first trophy since 2016 and even staved off late pressure from […]

8 years ago

They were calling Tadhg Furlong the greatest tighthead in the world on Saturday but the reality is that he is even more than that. In The Making of Tadhg Furlong episode, everyone talked about what a naturally talented sportsman he was. It was never just a case that he was a big lad who made […]

8 years ago

It’s zero degrees in London. Johnny Sexton’s veins might well need to be cooler if Ireland are going to clinch a third ever Grand Slam but Joe Schmidt’s scummy Irish (credit: Eddie Jones) will have to overcome the elements as well as well as history as well as a good England side if they are […]

8 years ago

From being a farmer in Wexford to becoming one of the best rugby players in the whole world. The rise of Tadhg Furlong has been nothing short of meteoric. In the space of one year, he went from an uncapped international player to a crucial member of an historic Lions team. From humble beginnings, the […]

8 years ago

Jose Mourinho should’ve been sacked on the spot after his press conference on Friday. Despite previously instructing the United-loving world that they were allowed just 24 hours to dwell on the Sevilla defeat, the manager – yes, the actual f**king manager – doubled down on his criticism of the history of his own club with […]

8 years ago

The landscape in 2004 was a little different to what it’s like today. For a start, 19 years had passed since Ireland’s last Six Nations championship victory. Nine years had come and gone with the Irish managing to see off England just once in that period. Meanwhile, Clive Woodward had taken the English to the […]

8 years ago

By Shaun Stephens Mohamed Salah has set the league alight this season and the Liverpool fans have taken him into their hearts. Goals, assists, electrifying moments of brilliances, being spotted in chip shops… he really does have it all. Now, his name is even being sung on the streets of Merseyside by a choir of […]

8 years ago

For a while, Kerry had a half forward line of Donnchadh Walsh, Johnny Buckley and Paul Murphy. All quality players but all grafters who do their best jobs in the middle third. Murphy, for years now, has been thrown to and fro between half forward and half back but he seems to have found a […]

8 years ago

Steel, energy, experience. Anthony Thompson is a good man to have back. Declan Bonner and his McKenna Cup-winning Donegal side have been boosted by the return of one of the most iconic number 5s in the county’s history. Anthony Thompson has rejoined the panel after a spell away under the stewardship of Rory Gallagher when […]

8 years ago

It’s not all about winning. A story was told from Mardyke Arena in Cork on Tuesday night but it wasn’t your classic Hollywood tale of hope and inspiration and rising above yourself and all that. No, this one was a bit more realistic. One you couldn’t sugar coat for the kids and one you shouldn’t either […]

8 years ago

Home is where the heart is. There’s only around 6.6 million people living on the island of Ireland. A lot of them aren’t interested in sport. More of them aren’t interested in the GAA. 6.6 million on a little piece of land no longer than 486km encircled by the Irish Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. […]

8 years ago

History. That’s what Giorgio Chiellini believes in and, if anyone was to believe him, no-one would be able to go and make their own. You see, history is written by those who weren’t afraid to get their head bloody running through the wall first. It’s made by the ones who stuck themselves above the parapet. […]

8 years ago

It’s strange that Michael O’Neill is banging on about Catholicism and doesn’t once talk about Irishness. In an outrageous interview with the Irish Daily Mail, O’Neill accuses the FAI of only being interested in Catholics when recruiting players from Derry, Antrim, Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone and Down. Catholics. He talks about having a problem when the […]

8 years ago

We can get a little carried away with ourselves in the GAA world. We all like to think we’re better than what we are – well, it’s not that we think it, we just tell people so. The only reason some of us do anything is to tell people. I remember I used to think […]

8 years ago

When Carlow GAA published a text message that highlighted kids couldn’t play GAA if they were on the Carlow/Kilkenny soccer team, it wasn’t an attack at soccer. The fallout might’ve garnered a poisonously divisive reaction and lent itself to a classic GAA v soccer tit-for-tat war but that text and that decision is just one […]

8 years ago

Now behold the price of leaving yourself with no room for error. The GAA tried to squash league football and hurling, pre-season competitions, club All-Irelands and Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cups into three months at the start of the calendar year and, with this pointless scheme to leave April free for clubs, they left themselves with […]

8 years ago

Ireland is too small a place for this carry on. Life is way too short for nonsense like this. Any coach who tells you that there’s not a rivalry between GAA and soccer is lying. Even the best of them who bite their lips and make allowances for players to do both, they’re all still […]

8 years ago

All Allianz League games have been cancelled this weekend. The GAA have finally moved to postpone Saturday and Sunday’s fixtures as Storm Emma freezes the country. It means that the highly-anticipated clash between Dublin and Kerry at Croke Park on Saturday evening will be pushed back as the aim is to push all round five […]

8 years ago

They’re in every county, they’re in every club. They’re told with even more weight and conviction than an urban myth, they’re spread farther and more enthusiastically. When you hear one of these, it is pure, unquestioned gospel and everyone in the county will follow on and accept it too. Here are some of the classic […]

8 years ago

At times of adversity and crisis, the good people of the GAA like to use it as a test. This is where championships are won, they’ll tell you. Now we’ll see how much you want to succeed. Now we’ll see who has the stomach for the fight. A lot of league campaigns haven’t even started […]

8 years ago

A jersey fit for champions. Samantha Lambert lifting the Mary Quinn Cup on the Hogan Stands steps will forever be iconic for Tipperary ladies football. Aisling McCarthy’s 1-4 in the All-Ireland decider at Croke Park won’t be forgotten in a hurry whilst Aisling Moloney scrambling atop that late Tyrone effort that hit the post when […]

8 years ago

“Come back with your shield, or on it.” Patsy Bradley has always been every inch a warrior. He only understands the fight. If he needed a shield, if – like the Spartans – what he was holding was imperative for the defensive stability of his army, he’d never even move a finger off of it, […]

8 years ago

Club games all over Dublin across every age group are cancelled this weekend. The Dublin county board moved on Wednesday to postpone every single fixture across all adult and juvenile competitions after heavy snow fall and thick lie on the east coast. IMPORTANT NOTICE: All Adult, Minor & Juvenile club fixtures in Dublin have been […]

8 years ago

Michael Jones, what a hit. The name of the young Derry man should live long in the memory of Solitude Stadium after his scorpion kick back-heeled goal lit up Belfast. Oxford United Stars travelled to take on Cliftonville in the Northern Ireland Cup on Friday night and, although the boys from the north west ultimately […]

8 years ago

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, but, oh Christ, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were? Of all the great things to come out of America – and there have been some things – the Kansas City GAA jersey is definitely the best. The geansaí, produced by Masita last year, received worldwide acclaim and it’s no wonder. […]

8 years ago