95 caps later, five Lions appearances, Grand Slam success, captain’s armbands and the World Rugby Try of the Year, Jamie Heaslip did alright. It’s scary how many of the planet’s top sportsmen are told that they’re not going to cut it. The annals of history are filled with some of the best footballers and rugby […]

8 years ago

Dublin have not won the last three All-Ireland football championships because they have a lucrative sponsor logo on their jerseys. They have the best team and that has long since been in the making. They have the best team – it’s that simple. The revenue helps, of course it does, but nothing should be taken away […]

8 years ago

Are you tired of being overlooked? Are you not getting the credit you deserve? Is the manager really a bollocks or is it time for some home truths? Underdogs is returning to TG4 and can finally prove it to the whole world that you are good enough to play county. No more hard luck stories. […]

8 years ago

Do you know that bookmakers wouldn’t even give you odds on Wes Hoolahan’s next club? Of all the frustrations you’d face trying to convince the world that this man never got the appreciation he deserved, this is the final slap in the face. You’d get the odds on Anthony Martial alright. Antoine Griezmann. You’d get […]

8 years ago

This is the summer of the Super 8s but over 41 per cent of those games won’t be free-to-air. The All-Ireland football championship has been revamped for 2018 but Sky Sports are going to be the subject of much debate yet again. Nobody really argues that they don’t do a good job or that James […]

8 years ago

3-18 to 0-13. You wouldn’t put that down as a Munster championship scoreline. You wouldn’t have it for a west coast derby. But 14 points was the difference in Cusack Park as Limerick’s under-21s swatted aside Clare right out of their own backyard and cruised into the provincial semi-final. A decade on from when the […]

8 years ago

The best way you could explain to someone just how big of a disservice New York v Leitrim was done – or Sligo and London for that matter – is to look at the RTÉ schedule on Sunday night. Not only were there no live games – remember, there’s a whole list of games that […]

8 years ago

Cristiano Ronaldo will undergo a scan on Monday to survey the extent of his ankle injury. The Real Madrid star netted his 450th goal for the club at the Nou Camp on Sunday night during the 2-2 draw with Barcelona but, in the process, seemed to roll over his joint. But, my, it was a […]

8 years ago

You know what they say, the hottest love has the coldest end. Or is that just Socrates who says that? 'The hottest love has the coldest end' – Socrates. pic.twitter.com/CdKp8qupl0 — Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 31, 2017 For the last seven years, Piers Morgan has been blue in the face, firstly calling for any kind […]

8 years ago

Mesut Ozil can be beautiful to watch, absolutely beautiful. That only makes him all the more frustrating when he continues to put in non-shifts like this. Arsenal went down in Madrid in what was the most predictable scoreline in Europe this season. The 1-1 draw with Atletico at the Emirates meant they’d have to score […]

8 years ago

Over three weeks to the Champions League final. That can only mean one thing: over three weeks worth of build up. Imagine the saturation. We’re talking stats, we’re talking replays, we’re talking about omens and past players being scraped off the barrel to talk about their own experiences – mark my words, by the end […]

8 years ago

The year is 2012. Andy Robertson has graduated from the Queen’s Park academy and, at 18, he’s lying around in the summer just waiting for the Queen’s Park season to start so he can make his debut for the senior team. Who the fuck is Queen’s Park, you ask? Easy. Glasgow side. Amateur. Actually, they’re […]

8 years ago

As injury time winners go, Mayo’s was as satisfying as any of them. The men from the west launched a stunning late comeback in the junior football championship on Wednesday evening to see off Roscommon who, just minutes earlier, were sitting pretty. Four points became three, three became two and, with one bullet Ciaran Boylan […]

8 years ago

There are 68 minutes on the clock. Mayo are three points down. Roscommon lead the Connacht Junior Football Championship game going down the Castlebar home stretch. At 1-17 to 1-14, it’s going to take something special from Mayo. Even when they raise another white flag and bring the gap to two, there’s a feeling sweeping […]

8 years ago

Alright, it stopped being funny after the 15th time. It stopped being funny when Simon Mignolet stuck his gob in. The saddest thing about it is that Harry Kane was the only loser out of all this when he claimed a goal off his team mate Christian Eriksen, presumably in pursuit of the top scorer […]

8 years ago

Who’d have thought that playing no full backs against the sharpest front three in the world wouldn’t have worked? Roma weren’t to know anyway, that’s for sure. Look, they went for it. They decided that the best form of containing Mané, Firmino and Salah was to play three centre backs and have no-one really covering […]

8 years ago

Mo Salah does what he wants. When you’ve scored 42 goals in a season where you’ve started 43 times for your team, it makes perfect sense that bookies aren’t going to start handing out incentives to get people betting on a man who, let’s face it, is going to score. At 25 years of age, […]

8 years ago

Social media might be annoying at times but when it starts impacting real life, that’s when it pushes it. You see it all the time. Personalities have to apologise because someone decided to take offence to a word they didn’t like and they have the platform to squeal to employers and sponsors who, whatever their […]

8 years ago

You know it’s coming up to championship time when the media are being frozen out but Donegal are taking measures of privacy and leak-prevention to a whole new level. This week, Joe Brolly came back from a week off of writing with a bang. In his column in the Derry Journal, he uncovered information on […]

8 years ago

Dublin take on Mayo yet again in another decider but, this time, there will be no Cora Staunton. The Mayo legend – nay, the football legend – has returned from her stint in the Southern Hemisphere playing Aussie Rules professionally but, as her county gears up for a shot of the league title at Parnell […]

8 years ago

100 years ago, Wexford were doing what not even Jim Gavin has managed to do yet. Between 1915 and 1918, the Model county clinched four All-Ireland senior football titles in succession and made it back to back to back to back. It was a period of dominance that had Gaels all over the country howling […]

8 years ago

There’s a thought. Injured? Hungover? Don’t fancy it? Sure you’re only a phone call away from freedom. Club games get called off for all sorts of loose reasons. Yes, some solid ones too but others, let’s say, convenient. The opposition ask you at the start of the year can you swap dates because a stag […]

8 years ago

It’s rare you get anything from a footballer these days, let alone honesty. James McClean has always been an oasis of staying true to his feelings and not being afraid of telling you what those feelings are if you ask. He’s a man to front up and he’s a man to stick to his principles […]

8 years ago

Racing 92’s Champions Cup final preparations have been dealt a massive blow as Maxime Machenaud has been ruled out of the decider against Leinster. The French scrum half picked up a knee ligament injury in the Top 14 win over Bordeaux at the weekend and has been ruled out for the rest of the season […]

8 years ago

In Sevens football, your goalkeeper is usually your best player. They have the space, they have no-one marking them and they have the ability to scale the pitch and cause serious damage. Used correctly, the Sevens goalkeeper is the one player who can cause an imbalance in play every single time because they can either […]

8 years ago

If fearr Gaeilge briste ná Béarla cliste. The GAA is a beautiful place because there’s a place for everyone, no matter what your ability is with a ball. Whatever idea you have, whatever bit of muscle you think you can lend, you can be damned sure that the club will use it and they’ll drain […]

8 years ago

Aidan O’Mahony doesn’t need more than four words to talk about a good diet. “Drink water… eat healthy”. His pause would make you think that you’re an idiot for ever asking. What more do you really need to know for now? Drink water, eat healthy. And, when you’re like him, training twice a day – […]

8 years ago

Week 2, the difficult second album. Except it’s the same again: TV, geography, records and general knowledge. It’s that time again – let’s see how much you really know. Don’t miss our Friday quiz any week – catch up with all of them right here.

8 years ago

It’s only a game. A beautiful game. An attritional game. But a game. We like to pretend like it’s war, like the way a game of football moves around a patch of grass is important but what happened to Sean Cox on his way to a game is just plain crazy. The Liverpool fan travelled […]

8 years ago

Mark Lynch had me lined up one terrifying Friday night in Derry. He had sauntered down the left in that deceptive way he does where it looks like he’s struggling and absolutely fucked to be honest but he’s still eating up yards anyway. It probably comes from playing with 13 different teams from the age […]

8 years ago

One of the things that probably gets lost amidst the crying echoes of ‘they’re only human’ is actually the reality that these men are big GAA people too. Many referees and officials you meet all over the country are some of the biggest club men around. When they’re in getting tea at half time, they’re […]

8 years ago

Before Tuesday night, Eusebio Di Francesco played three at the back just twice in his history as Roma manager. They needed to score at least three goals against Barcelona or they were out of the Champions League so, for the first time this season, they changed system and went for it. Rather than their normal 4-3-3, […]

8 years ago

It’s now or never. Brendan Murphy is headed for America and, in the process, leaving Carlow midseason. The rise in the county under the stewardship of Turlough O’Brien has been inspiring. A rattling of Dublin set the stage for them to go on and put three championship wins together. What followed? Promotion to Division Three, […]

8 years ago

Fergie vs Wenger. Will we ever see the like of it again? Yes, there are other big rivals on this planet and, honestly, Alex Ferguson himself probably had tougher opponents in his time too but few duels were filled with such genuine hatred. United and Arsenal did not like each other one bit and that […]

8 years ago

They take their championship previews seriously in Wexford. Four weeks out from throw-in, the heat is being turned up on the south east of Ireland. Davy Fitzgerald already had his whinge about Wexford’s championship odds in the bookmakers, sure they might as well not show up, but now he can put his money where his […]

8 years ago

The GAA has issued a statement to remind the public that it is a non-party organisation. With the referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment set for Friday 25 May, a group called GAA Athletes for a NO Vote appeared at Ballyfermot Sports and Fitness Centre to talk to the press and read an official statement […]

8 years ago

Chrissy McKaigue isn’t one to shirk anything. He’s considered in everything he does, he’s honest and he’s self-critical. He knows better than anyone that Derry football has allowed itself to fall into the pits and he wants more than anyone to drag it back out. He’s on board again on the county setup for the […]

8 years ago

Having equalled the Premier League goals record on Saturday, Mo Salah was crowned PFA Player of the Year on Sunday evening. And rightly so. The Egyptian has scored 31 league goals since returning to England from Roma last summer, matching the existing record that is jointly held by Alan Shearer, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suarez. […]

8 years ago

Have 100 quid to spare? Sure you might as well buy a €280,000 house with it. That’s right. You read that correctly. St. Fechin’s GAA club in Louth are raffling away a four-bedroom semi-detached house and it could be yours for 100 quid. Working with a local developer, the club secured a house in Termonfeckin’s Castle […]

8 years ago

Cruel efficiency. The Antrim football league got under way on Wednesday night and Dunloy weren’t looking to burn themselves out too quickly. The club, most famous further afield for its hurlers, picked up the first two points on offer in the Division 2 league but, somehow, they did it without scoring any actual points. It’s […]

8 years ago

I stood in Coppers a few months ago (don’t ask) trying to get the balance right between looking preoccupied with something on my phone and not looking like a dickhead as my mate engaged in conversation. He was chatting with a high-profile inter-county footballer he once played alongside and I was somewhere in between being […]

8 years ago

The excitement of the Super 8s and all these packed out provincial grounds and the prospect of ambushing Dublin somewhere down the country during high summer is suddenly a lot less appetising. For two of the three group games in those quarter-final matches, Dublin will still be at Croke Park. Every team will have a […]

8 years ago

The Jackson and Olding trial sparked a nationwide debate. Arguments fell out from the verdict itself when all four men, Jackson, Olding, McIlroy and Harrison, were acquitted of all charges. Regardless of the not guilty decision though, the nature of some of the details revealed during the court case upset many. Fears were expressed about […]

8 years ago

Sometimes, the rules can simply go f**k themselves. There are rare moments in football that transcend everything else you think you care about because, in them, you believe in magic again and you understand that happiness is such a simple thing. The rest of it, your job and your money and your conformity might well […]

8 years ago

Jack Grealish is just 22 years of age. There was a period there, at least for a while back in 2015, when he was really lighting up the Premier League. Between himself, Fabian Delph and Christian Benteke, the trio were producing fireworks that steered Villa away from relegation with victories at Anfield and White Hart […]

8 years ago

No-one had Kilkenny to win this. This was the game for Tipp to assert their dominance over the Cats – that crowd up the road who already had their moment in the sun. This was the day they finally rolled into Nowlan Park and came away with a victory and a cruel message that would […]

8 years ago

There’s taking no prisoners and then there’s burning the whole jail down. Aoife Murray is an uncompromising goalkeeper but, on Sunday, one challenged went further into the unceremonious territory. The Cork stopper’s intentions were what most sportspeople’s would be in that moment. Her side were trailing, Shelly Farrell had side-stepped her and was about to […]

8 years ago

That’s just Eoin Murphy for you. What else do you want to know? Last week in the league semi-final in Wexford Park, he showed one side of his technicolour arsenal – the 110 metre point-scoring trick. It’s a decent thing to have in the locker alright. It basically means that any time your team wins […]

8 years ago

The All-Ireland champions rallied, but the league champions mercilessly cut off their supplies. In the end, it was Shelly Farrell who climbed the Nowlan Park steps and hoisted aloft the league trophy that makes it three-in-a-row for Kilkenny but, more importantly, sends out a message that they’re coming back and gunning to reclaim the All-Ireland. […]

8 years ago

Derry GAA, famous for its club football. Famous for its competitiveness. Famous for Enda Muldoon. You’d go a long way to find Gaels as proud as those you would uncover in every corner of Derry and, whilst there might well be apathy around the county setup at times, the club is still very much at […]

8 years ago