“A proud Kerryman who continuously showed class when so many didn’t have any.” Éamonn Fitzmaurice might’ve made a couple of mistakes along the way and maybe, historically, one All-Ireland in six years hasn’t been good enough for Kerry but there are several bottom lines that have been ignored in the quest to sit a new […]

8 years ago

Sure what would a homecoming really be if it didn’t involve a bit of festive cheer? Perhaps the greatest thing about Irish jubilation is that it usually reaches a point where no-one cares about anything anymore. We celebrate and marvel and come together in such a euphoric way that inhibitions are lost and, before you […]

8 years ago

If you plan your summer around the Blessing of the Graves, you’re going to be gutted. It’s the biggest event of the year in many places, it’s the highlight of the decade for some people too and, if anything, it’s just another excuse for a group session of tea-drinking but, in Monaghan, it’s going to […]

8 years ago

Don’t blame the rules, blame the referee. Donegal were relegated from Division One in April because the referee failed to implement a very fundamental four-step rule. Kevin McLoughlin took 13 steps as he ran by Eoghan Bán Gallagher – untouched – to go and kick the equalising score that rescued Mayo and relegated Donegal with […]

8 years ago

The vultures are already fighting over the bones of the dead carcass. Maybe Kerry people need a reality check. Perhaps throwing out lines like, “Kerry have only won one All-Ireland in the last nine” means absolutely nothing because Dublin won five of those eight so far. Dublin are far superior to Kerry. Donegal would’ve beaten […]

8 years ago

Your problem with Gaelic football is not the hand pass. Your problem is with teams playing 14 men behind the ball. Your other problem is the keep-ball tactics, when players run the clock down by slowly giving the size five a tour of the most unexciting, risk-adverse areas of the pitch. But the hand pass […]

8 years ago

This is what they call high season. Buckle up, cancel your own sessions, accept once and for all that the GAA is – despite the old coach in the club constantly telling you otherwise – a spectator sport. Throughout this week, across four different days and three stations, there will be eight matches available to view. From […]

8 years ago

Good players make great things look so easy. Ryan O’Donoghue is a young man with a bright future and, whilst he has to live with the pain of an All-Ireland final defeat, he should rest easy in the knowledge that he performed on the biggest stage on the holy soil. Some players take to Croke […]

8 years ago

Four tackles, four evasions, goal of the championship. Shane O’Donnell didn’t just rally Clare back into the All-Ireland semi-final, he inspired the youth of Ireland to spend their Sunday evenings selling dummies out their back yards and slamming sliotars in through their plastic posts. The Banner were at the wrong side of the result on […]

8 years ago

A gift from the gods, is Ulster football. Hurling has been enjoying all the plaudits and, to be honest, the last three games have had unbelievable climaxes. Clare and Galway’s extra time thriller. Limerick and Cork’s extra time thriller. Clare and Galway’s last 15 minutes in Thurles. It’s been end to end, score for score, […]

8 years ago

The appetite of Bernard Brogan knows no satisfying. Of all the things he’s achieved, of all the records he’s broken, Sunday is right up there with the very best of them. In what was a procession at Croke Park, Dublin completed the Super 8s with a rout over Roscommon, winning 4-24 to 2-16 in the […]

8 years ago

Dublin are a joke. Imagine any second team in the country boasting Paul Flynn. Paul Flynn! Or Cormac Costello. Or Paddy Andrews. Or Kevin McManamon. Eric Lowndes. Eoghan O’Gara. Darren Daly. They have ridiculous options and, even though they made seven changes for the Roscommon game, their team still looked like the best team in […]

8 years ago

Does Joe Canning not realise how tough sideline cuts are? Galway will play Limerick in the All-Ireland final after another breathtaking second half with Clare. Clare and Galway – the entire island will be praying that they could play each other every single week. Galway 1-17 Clare 2-13 For a minute though, it looked for […]

8 years ago

Aaron O’Neill is so much more than a shot-stopper. Aaron O’Neill is a show-stopper. Four minutes on the clock, five points between the teams. Mayo are coming. Kildare are hanging on. They’ve decided to preserve what they have. They haven’t scored for 11 minutes and they’ll only manage one more but no goals should see […]

8 years ago

Kildare is rising and you better believe it. Leinster minor champions in 2015. Leinster minor champions in 2016. Now, they’ve gone and won the whole thing, conquered the land. Kildare are the first ever All-Ireland under-20 football champions after they held on to see off Mayo in Croke Park in the decider. Kildare 1-18 Mayo […]

8 years ago

It feels like it’s been a long season already. It seems like forever ago you were sitting in a cold room in December talking nonsense about how this season was all going to be different. You had the enthusiasm and the togetherness ready and willing to execute the gym plan and put in all the hard […]

8 years ago

Sure isn’t that what the GAA is all about? With all the shit that’s going on… The attempt to overrule Kildare’s home advantage The Dublin Croke Park/home game saga The continuing fixture condensing that began at the start of the year with players having to play club All-Ireland semi-finals and Sigerson games at the same […]

8 years ago

That’s the beauty of good footballers, they’re really good with the football. At 22 years of age, Andreas Pereira might be six shy of Mourinho’s dream player – in terms of years and inches – but he could well prove to be like a new signing for Manchester United all the same. He’s come through […]

8 years ago

Partly Kelleher’s rise, mostly Karius’ crumble. It has been a particularly bad pre-season for Loris Karius at Liverpool but it hasn’t been a good spell for him on the entirety. Even before his Champions League final meltdown, the German was never going to be the goalkeeper Liverpool needed to challenge for the title. He was […]

8 years ago

Perhaps the emboldened GAA population is just enjoying sticking it to The Man. Perhaps they’re still, even after all the strifes, being persecuted. The biggest problem with a lot of the issues that have surfaced this year is that they have been so avoidable. They’ve been so avoidable and it’s the normal, lay person suffering […]

8 years ago

Unfortunately, Katie Taylor’s greatness is still undermined. There are still too many who want to put an asterisk beside her wins. If their issue was initially with amateur boxing, now it’s female boxing – at least that’s what the ignorant stance is. Yeah, she’s good and all but… There’s always a but. For some reason, […]

8 years ago

Katie Taylor is just vicious. Very few fighters in the history of professional female boxing can or could land combinations as ferociously and as relentlessly as she does. The mandatory defence of the Bray native’s IBF and WBA titles went as impressively as her other nine pro career wins. A third round stoppage (1 minute […]

8 years ago

54,191 people travelled from the west of Ireland and sat in the Dublin rain to watch magic. Galway were expected to be asked some questions of Clare but no-one predicted that they’d have to go to the well and dig deeper than they have had to in the last two years. No-one thought they’d be […]

8 years ago

Who wouldn’t want to watch that again? Stupid question, there’s nobody here to put their hands up to that question. After 90 minutes of non-stop craziness, 90 minutes of heart, skill and endless drama, Clare and Galway have to do it all again in the All-Ireland semi-final. The champions were put to the pins of […]

8 years ago

What? How? Why? Imagine spending your life not watching hurling. Never don’t watch a game of hurling. Never don’t. Galway and Clare was an All-Ireland semi-final so the territory that comes with commands that it’ll be pretty spectacular anyway but it grew into a bloody joke by the end of it. From Clare’s comeback to […]

8 years ago

Dónal Tuohy, my good God. There are fewer better things in this world than the All-Ireland hurling semi-final. It always, always delivers. There’s always, always non-stop noise. It’s always in the balance for 70 minutes and more. 90 minutes in this case. And, do you know, there are even less things more impressive on this […]

8 years ago

Most teams have done it at some stage. We play the game on our own terms. We go out when we’re ready. Clare had just come from nine points down and fought back from being blown away by Galway in the first 15 minutes at Croke Park so you can forgive them for feeling a little […]

8 years ago

From upwards of the under-16 age group, Galway are cleaning up. Across camogie, football and hurling, the west has risen and maroon jerseys of all sizes are dominating. In 2018, there are 17 championship titles on offer for all of Galway’s teams from under-16 camogie to senior men’s football and, so far, they’ve won seven […]

8 years ago

Guile versus strength. Security versus chaos. The rock versus the the rock breaker. Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up because it’s time for Daithi Burke versus John Conlon. This is what hurling is all about. This is why over 50,000 people will stream down Jones’ Road on Saturday and why the guts of a million Irish […]

8 years ago

UFC 230 could just break another PPV record. Whatever you want to label the antics – the showdown between Khabib Nurmagomedov and Artem Lobov, the parking lot retribution of McGregor and his crew, the back and forths, the court case – they’re going to amount, yet again, to Conor McGregor putting on a spectacle that […]

8 years ago

The only thing better than a final weekend showdown of the Super 8s is a couple of mouthwatering semi-finals. Only six days after the quarter-final group stages are finished with (the GAA prefer we don’t use the term Super 8), the last four counties remaining in the All-Ireland championship will trade blows in a shootout […]

8 years ago

Listen, it’s very easy to become addicted to jersey porn. You tell yourself it’s just one time, you tell yourself you’re only going to have a little peak – that you’re in total control of it. Then you say you’ll go back for a second, just to see what’s going on. Before you know it, […]

8 years ago

There are three changes to the Dublin team listed on your match day programme. Three crucial changes – each of them with a specific purpose and each of them paying rich, rich dividends. 24) Eoin Murchan comes in. Eoin is tasked with silencing Niall Sludden. Eoin succeeds. 26) John Small comes in. John, you will […]

8 years ago

Ryan McHugh. Niall Sludden. Eoin Murchan is filling out his CV nicely. In the space of two battles, the Na Fianna club man has accumulated the heads of Ulster’s finest warriors and returned home with them on a stick. McHugh, the perennial tormentor of the capital and Sludden, the biggest threat in what would be […]

8 years ago

We want you! It’s been five years since we heard the Banner Roar in Croker, but the Clare fans are back in full voice ahead of the All-Ireland semi-final against neighbours Galway. Wooly and The GAA Hour crew are in Ennis with a top class panel of guests to look ahead to the big game. […]

8 years ago

It seems that common sense – and common decency for that matter – are yet to prevail. As it stands, the Liam Miller memorial match is still going ahead at Turners Cross. Tickets are still sold out – as they were after the very first minute of them going on sale – and Páirc Uí […]

8 years ago

Watch for it, it happens in most games. But this game wasn’t like most games. This was Monaghan on the brink of an All-Ireland semi-final for the first time in three decades. And, still, they’re being let down by ignorance of a very, very basic playing rule. Listen up: a player in possession of a […]

8 years ago

Kerry were 100 seconds from having their championship ended in the middle of July. Monaghan were 100 seconds from their first All-Ireland semi-final in 30 years. A 19-year-old changed all that. Kerry get a goal at the death to equalise in Clones! What a game! Make sure to watch all the highlights tonight on the […]

8 years ago

Most teams need a James McClean. Energy. Drive. Aggression. A workhorse, a direct force, a fearless man who’d fancy his chances against any of them. Stoke City have just acquired a talent that can light up the English Championship. The Derry native joins the Potters – his fourth club across the water – for a […]

8 years ago

Imagine scoring from 65 metres out and it’s not even the best thing you’ve done in the first 20 minutes of a game. Well, that’s Rory Beggan for you. Accepted as one of the finest goalkeepers in the country, the Monaghan number has one of the most beautiful right feet that any Gaelic footballer has […]

8 years ago

Tyrone were robbed in the 1995 All-Ireland championship. At the very least, they were robbed a draw. At 1-10 to 0-12, Sean McLaughlin equalised with the last attack of the game but the referee disallowed it, ruling that Peter Canavan had touched the ball on the ground. Canavan did touch the ball on the ground but it was […]

8 years ago

A touch of class and a straight-up good idea. Devin Toner is a fine man. As a sportsperson, he’s touched greatness and done it again. From European Cups to Grand Slams, he’s made history with his native province and country. And, somehow, it feels as though you haven’t even scratched the surface with the potential […]

8 years ago

We want you! The Super 8s have started with a bang, Dublin and Tyrone are flying and the nation’s biggest GAA show is back on the road to Ulster. The GAA Hour continues its live shows this week in Tyrone ahead of an historic All-Ireland quarter-final between the champions and the Red Hands in Omagh. […]

8 years ago

Never underestimate what you can do with a shoestring. In the 2011 census, the population of county Monaghan stood at 60,483. It’s the fourth smallest county in all of Ireland. When you drill down into those figures though, you get to the real core of what Malachy O’Rourke is actually working with. Of those 60,483, […]

8 years ago

It goes like this, when you spend the last week just watching semi-finals and the final – the final. You forget about the rest of the competition. RTÉ announced their World Cup team of the tournament on Sunday evening and there was one man left out who really should not have been left out. The best […]

8 years ago

Callum Brown is a young man with a bright future. At the start of this year, new Derry manager Damian McErlain included the Limavady club man in his starting team for a McKenna Cup fixture but a stupid GAA rule meant he wasn’t allowed to in the end. It turns out Brown was too young to […]

8 years ago

Write off Tyrone at your peril. If teams and tactics are being declared as no longer viable because of how they did against Dublin, there’d be no teams or tactics left. Tyrone losing to Dublin last year shouldn’t be the final testament of how good they are or how useful their system is. Kerry’s system […]

8 years ago

There might be a point in there somewhere but it’ll get lost in the overzealous description. Michael Murphy is a lot of things but he certainly isn’t a liability. It’s been a curse on Rory Gallagher and Declan Bonner, having a Michael Murphy without Neil Gallagher and Rory Kavanagh there as well. Jim McGuinness had that […]

8 years ago

Ryan Patrick Nolan, remember the name. From Clare to Milan by way of Spain, it’s been a hell of a rise for Ryan Nolan but rise he has. At 19 years of age, the Irish defender made his debut for the Italian giants on Saturday night in a 3-0 friendly win over Lugano. He came […]

8 years ago

Gaelic football really has allowed itself to lose the plot. We’ve become so paranoid about what the outside world thinks, about how good some games are between six hurling counties and about what constitutes entertainment that champions are no longer allowed to see a match out. Even the term ‘seeing the game out’ is an […]

8 years ago