He will be out of action until February. Kieran Marmion’s ankle has been nagging him for a while now and after playing through the pain barrier since October, he’s finally set to have ankle surgery to try and heal the injury this week. The surgery will keep him out for three months until February and […]

7 years ago

Ballyboden St Enda’s won the Dublin county championship this year. And if they want to get to an All-Ireland semi-final after it, they’ll have won three more hard games in Leinster to get there. It’s the same for Ballygunner in Waterford and Munster and it’s the same for Ballyhale in Kilkenny and Leinster too. That’s […]

7 years ago

Stephen Corcoran can hit them boy. You hear about goalkeepers booming it into the next parish well then Coolderry’s Stephen Corcoran must be dropping his missiles into the next bloody continent. And tell you what, you’ve never panicked until you’ve been a defender standing in the way of one of those sliotars’ explosive paths. Hurling […]

7 years ago

Coolderry were favourites to be relegated from the Offaly championship at the start of the year. An ageing team who’d had their day, they thought. They’re going down, they said. They went out and won the Offaly championship, beating Kilcormac/Killoughey in the final by six. How’s that? Fast forward a couple of months Coolderry are […]

7 years ago

This lad has it all. Some little towns and villages in this island have a knack of producing prodigiously talented players and Crossmaglen is one of those places. For the last 20 years, the south Armagh village have been front and centre for the majority of nearly every club football championship played and the most […]

7 years ago

Honestly you just can’t beat it. The last eight weekends of club GAA have been unbelievable, the weekend just past was from another world. Gaoth Dobhair played football from the Gods, Coolderry and Ballyboden played hurling from the heavens. And when so many teams and individuals play so bloody good, how the hell are you […]

7 years ago

90 minutes, 83 points, four red cards and Brian Carroll was in the thick of it all. Well, for 85 of those minutes anyway. If Coolderry were ever to have a chance of beating Ballyboden St Enda’s, then the 5/2 underdogs would need Brian Carroll to hurl out of his skin. That’s what everybody was […]

7 years ago

Johnny Carlin won’t have to buy a pint in Killygordon again. There’s 20 minutes left in Celtic Park and Red Hugh’s are down by four points. The Donegal champs have slogged it out with Limavady Wolfhounds for 40 plus minutes but they’re struggling to break the Derry defence down. Enter Johnny Carlin. Limavady Wolfhounds have […]

7 years ago

There are heroes and then there’s Daire Ó Baoill. Gaoth Dobhair were underdogs in Omagh but they didn’t play like underdogs. They were without their most effective player, their leader and their centre back Kieran Gillespie, but they played their Ulster semi-final against Crossmaglen in a way that would have made him proud. In a […]

7 years ago

That’s hurling for you. Parnell Park in the middle of November and every spectator would have got their money’s worth regardless of how much they paid to get in. Ballyboden St Enda’s against Coolderry. The cream of Dublin against the pride of Offaly. A Leinster senior club hurling semi-final on a sunny Sunday. There would […]

7 years ago

Scotstown 1-14 Eoghan Rua 2-10 Scotstown got out of jail in Omagh. The favourites for the Ulster championship were fancied to coast through to the final. Eoghan Rua Coleraine had different ideas, very different ideas indeed about the whole thing. The four-in-a-row Monaghan champs haven’t won in Ulster with this team and it looked for […]

7 years ago

Ballyhale Shamrocks 6-21 Naomh Eanna 4-11 Australia did Colin Fennelly and TJ Reid no harm whatsoever. The pair were Down Under on a wild goose chase with the Kilkenny hurlers last weekend but they came back to Ireland, back to Wexford Park with their danders up. From sunny Sydney to the sunny south east, the […]

7 years ago

Mullahoran win 5-3 on free-kicks. That’s not the scoreline the Cavan champs were dreaming about but it’s the one that matters and it’s the one that’s taking them to an Ulster final. Themselves and Derry’s Banagher could only be separated by a free-kick shootout in their Ulster intermediate football semi-final in the Athletic Grounds on […]

7 years ago

Ireland have beaten the All Blacks. For the first time ever, Ireland have beaten the All Blacks on their home turf. This is everything, this is Ireland. He missed the game with a neck injury but Conor Murray threw every ball with Kieran Marmion, he ran every step with Jacob Stockdale, he pushed every push […]

7 years ago

All this before the game even began. Peter O’Mahony roared Amhrán na bhFiann loud and he roared Ireland’s Call even louder. His Ireland teammates followed his passionate lead and the hair stood tall on the back of every neck in Ireland for a few moments. Pure Peter O'Mahony passion! Come on Ireland 🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/tZrX50DLIK — […]

7 years ago

It’s all relative. Who in hurling have won more All-Ireland junior and intermediate club titles than any other county? Kilkenny. What about football? Kerry. Who are the most successful hurling and football counties in Ireland? Kilkenny and Kerry. Go figure. Junior and intermediate matters. The state of play on the club scene matters at senior […]

7 years ago

Enough of that talking craic. These Japanese lads meant business. Half-time in Twickenham and things couldn’t have been going much better for the Japanese. 15-10 they led Eddie Jones’ side and they’d played all the rugby too. Ryoto Nakamura skipped past England defenders like they weren’t even there after 22 minutes and that brought the […]

7 years ago

No club championship peaks and troughs quite like the hurling in Kilkenny. Win a junior county championship there and you’ll be fancied to go on and win Leinster and the All-Ireland too. Intermediate the following year isn’t as tough a challenge then. A club like Graigue Ballycallan sums it up. They were in the All-Ireland […]

7 years ago

Charleville doesn’t even remember the last time it had a Cork senior, never mind an All-Star. And if you asked about hurling in Charleville, even the most obsessed Cork hurling person would have told you they don’t remember much. Junior and intermediate for most of their lives, they were always the also-rans and never the […]

7 years ago

And then there were 12. The club football championships are passing us by like a train and we’re down to the provincial semis and the finals now. Everybody’s saying it’s a two horse race between Dr Crokes and Corofin but teams like Kilmacud Crokes will have a thing or two to say about that. Here’s […]

7 years ago

O’Tooles were once a powerhouse of Dublin hurling. In the last few years, they’ve faded but they’re trying to arrest that slide. With huge pushes being made behind the club’s underage structures, it seems the north side club are going the right way about it. It’s November now and apart from the clubs left in […]

7 years ago

Billy Ryan wasn’t going on any wild goose chase. While TJ Reid, Colin Fennelly, Joey Holden and Richie Reid of Ballyhale all headed to Sydney, Billy Ryan – another man who’s club are still standing in the All-Ireland club hurling championships – stayed put in Graigue/Ballycallan. The small club from the Kilmanagh area, not far […]

7 years ago

The peak of club GAA. The football is decent this weekend but the hurling is even better. There’s a Galway county final, two Leinster semis and two Munster finals for hurling folk to look forward to. Some of the country’s finest hurlers will be alongside each other and some of them will be against each […]

7 years ago

Brian Kerr tried his best to find a positive. He couldn’t even find a sniff of one. This Ireland team have been sleepwalking down a blind alley for quite some time now but this, a 0-0 draw with Northern Ireland in the Aviva Stadium where the home team were the lucky ones, was as bad […]

7 years ago

After the breakthrough, the bonus territory. “It was something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my days, I’ll tell you that.” So says Conor McDonald of Naomh Eanna’s first ever Wexford senior hurling championship win. The match itself was amazing, McDonald’s two goals the difference between themselves and St Martin’s, the scenes afterwards were […]

7 years ago

It would be amiss to write off any of the other six clubs still standing. Kilmacud Crokes are a serious outfit and so are Portlaoise and Ballintubber too. But for now, no team looks to be operating in the same league as Corofin and Dr Crokes. Seeing as the draw keeps Munster and Connacht apart […]

7 years ago

Hoho hurling… And don’t you worry, we’re not talking about the Fenway Classic. Far away from the bright lights of Boston are Semple Stadium, the Gaelic Grounds and Parnell Park but the glitz and glamour is always beaten by the substance, the significance, the bloodline and the bedrock of the GAA community. That’s club GAA […]

7 years ago

Every road in Asia leads to Bangkok this weekend. 18 GAA clubs, no more no less, from all corners of Asia are on the road. Destination, Bangkok. For the second year in a row, Thailand GAA are hosting the Fexco Asian Gaelic Games and from Singapore to Vietnam, from Cambodia to Japan and from Indonesia to […]

7 years ago

Some things change, the most important thing stays the same. There are fresh faces but the All Blacks just keep on winning. They suffered a scare against England last weekend but they overcame that scare and they still won like they always do. The word is, however, that this is the most vulnerable the All […]

7 years ago

It’s the final everybody wants to see. Dr Crokes beat Corofin the last time the teams met and beat them comfortably. It was double scores in the Gaelic Grounds in the 2017 All-Ireland club semi-final with goals from Gavin O’Shea and Jordan Kiely sealing the deal for the Kerry kingpins. That was a special Dr […]

7 years ago

Another weekend down. There were some big football and hurling games at the weekend and there were some brilliant camogie ones. Here’s the SportsJOE team of the weekend. 1 Patrick Rogers (St Columba’s Mullinlaghta) The Longford champs are one game away from their first ever Leinster final. Veteran Rogers has been brilliant for them for […]

7 years ago

The hurlers of Galway and Kilkenny put on a show in Sydney. But it wasn’t the type of show a lot of GAA folk wanted to see. Rather than the glitz and glamour of a fairly meaningless challenge match on the other side of the world, believe it or not, it was club games in […]

7 years ago

Kieran Molloy is a fair bit of stuff. He’s the type of lad who won’t take no for an answer and then when he’s told no, he’ll just get back up on his feet and he’ll ask the question again. And he’ll keep on asking it too. We’ve seen this from the man before. Just […]

7 years ago

A Saturday in November. God’s day of rest is devoted to the seniors and so the juniors and intermediates all over the country go at it on Saturdays. We’re at the provincial stages now and this weekend saw Young Hurler of the Year Kyle Hayes playing junior football and it saw Wexford champs Horeswood winning […]

8 years ago

Time for these boys to sing. Whether the GAA like it or not, county panels will be meeting up again around this time of the year. Fresh in the manager’s mind will be a season of club football and here are the boys who’ve done more than enough to earn themselves a chance during the […]

8 years ago

These lads are on the cusp of it. Just give them their chance and watch them take it. Some of them are coming of age in a young man’s game, the rest of them are in the peak of their powers and it’s a mystery that they haven’t got the county call-up yet. After these […]

8 years ago

The race for the Tommy Moore Cup. The first renewal of the All-Ireland club hurling championship was in the year 1970/1971. A Tipperary club became the first winners of the Tommy Moore Cup all those 47 years ago, and since then, there have been 25 more winners. Many clubs have won it multiple times, can […]

8 years ago

We’re talking about their favourite boots. All of these gaelic football legends could kick it off both, but we’re talking about the foot they’d bank on if they were to take a free from 40 yards straight in front of the goals to win the All-Ireland final. Give it a lash and let us know […]

8 years ago

Cahir Healy is one of the busiest men in the country at this time of the year. Playing both hurling and football for the club is difficult enough for local lads, never mind the players based outside the country. The Portlaoise stalwart Healy kept up the both of them this year while living over in […]

8 years ago

Everyone else has been doing the talking for Declan Rice. If it’s not Martin O’Neill it’s Gareth Southgate and if it’s not Gareth Southgate it’s Manuel Pellegrini. For a lad of only 19 years, Declan Rice has been pulled in all directions by so many different people over the last few months. To Rice’s credit, […]

8 years ago

Football rules this weekend. We’re at the quarter final stages in Leinster, the semis in Munster and the semis in Connacht. The provincial football championships are hotting up and a lot will be revealed this weekend. Will the favourites stay going strong or will the underdogs give them a run for their money? Hotshots will […]

8 years ago

Cristiano Ronaldo. He scores a goal that nobody else could score and then he shows off abs that nobody else could boast to celebrate it. All in about five seconds work. And in those five seconds, he created a mountain for his former club Manchester United to climb if they’re to progress to the last […]

8 years ago

What would you have done if you were Raheem Sterling? Bearing down on the Shakhtar Donetsk goal, the English winger looked confused as to what he was going to do next. He second-guessed himself, like he often does in these instances, and ended up kicking the Etihad Stadium turf and tripping himself up. The Shakhtar […]

8 years ago

Sometimes, sport can be a welcome distraction. Annabel Loughlin was tragically taken away from her community and from her family after a horrific accident last Friday. The three year-old Clonkill girl’s funeral took place on Tuesday afternoon. Annabel was the daughter of Enda Loughlin, a Clonkill and a Westmeath hurling great and it was with […]

8 years ago

Castlerahan were supposed to have been one of the lucky ones. The Cavan champions got the coveted two week break between their county final win, and their Ulster quarter-final. That’s a full fortnight, that’s plenty of time to celebrate, and it’s plenty of time to prepare for Eoghan Rua Coleraine. Right? Not quite. They could […]

8 years ago

Another weekend bites the dust. What a time of the year it is. Here’s the best of the weekend’s performers. 1 Stephen Corcoran (Coolderry, Offaly) How can you argue against the goalkeeper who scored five points and saved a penalty? Corcoran boomed over the long-range frees from all angles and distances. His puck-outs were delivered […]

8 years ago

Sunday didn’t seem like the day Rory Beggan would have to get used to this. He’s the best goalkeeper in the country now and he’s there to be shot at. Anything he does that even resembles an error will result in the Dublin diehards and those who just love to stir the pot circling and […]

8 years ago

And we go again. The weakest county champions have been weeded out, the strongest, they’re still standing and they’re hunting for further glory. The weekend just past threw up some more thrills but there were no really unexpected spills. In Connacht, favourites Corofin and Ballintubber are still on course for a final. In Ulster, Gaoth Dobhair […]

8 years ago

Lucky we enjoyed these weekends. Because they’re getting thin on the ground now. Every county championship has been completed bar the Galway hurling and the provincial rounds are passing us by like the cars in a Grand Prix. This Sunday was another great club Sunday and we’ve every single senior provincial club hurling and football […]

8 years ago

Where else in the world would you get anything at all like it? You could get it in Tipperary, you could get it in Galway. On Sunday we got it in Waterford but you wouldn’t get it any other country in the world only Ireland and you wouldn’t get it in any other sport in […]

8 years ago