It was after the Tyrone trouncing last year when the penny dropped for Kevin McStay. Roscommon were battered. Double scores in Croke Park, Tyrone had put an outlandish 4-24 past them. A physical, direct and bustling team, the Ulster men ran all over Roscommon who barely laid a glove on them. The Rossies had always […]

7 years ago

One door closes, a back door opens. No counties wanted to be there but 17 of them ended up there. The first fence fallers were all plunged into the hat for Monday morning’s first round qualifier draw which took place on Morning Ireland. It’s not an enviable place to be but it’s not the end […]

7 years ago

Brought to you in association with Centra #WeAreHurling And barely an eyelid was batted. Wexford were leading by a point but this was dodgy territory. One point up with only five minutes left, any slip is game, set and match. Conor Cooney is straight through on goal. Somehow he’s found himself with 20 yards of […]

7 years ago

Roscommon 2-12 Mayo 0-17 Not even a ghost point against them could prevent Roscommon from beating Mayo in MacHale Park on Saturday evening. Not even a black card that left them with 14 men for the last five minutes could deny them. Not even the will of Mayo, not even the Castlebar roar. Nothing could […]

7 years ago

Try stopping Shane Conway. Underdogs Kerry have gone to Cusack Park and beaten Westmeath to keep themselves right in the Joe McDonagh mix for 2019. Having lost to Antrim on the road first time out, the Kingdom’s backs were against the wall in Mullingar but with the pressure on they came out swinging. Lixnaw gem […]

7 years ago

Just imagine how sickening it will be for the lads this weekend. Kildare in O’Connor Park. It’s the first round of the Leinster championship and Longford, on the back of some giant-killings in recent seasons and after Mullinalaghta’s famous club run, will fancy their chances. That only makes it even tougher. Darren Gallagher, Rian Brady and […]

7 years ago

Shane Conway doesn’t hurl for television coverage or recognition. But someone else might. In a place like Kerry where the small ball exists only in a small, marginalised little pocket the trouble is getting the word out there. Old traditions die hard but new ones grow harder and by not showing the cream of the […]

7 years ago

It’s 98 years since the separation of Ireland’s football associations. The footballing relationship between the north and south was a tense one long before, but with with the island of Ireland on the cusp of partition, it became more conflicted than ever in the years leading up to 1921. The northern teams were dominant and […]

7 years ago

Winner alright, but don’t get carried away. March 17, 2019 and Ballyhale Shamrocks are the envy of every hurling club in Ireland. For the seventh time in their history, the rural powerhouse from Kilkenny have beaten all-comers again. It’s the peak of club GAA, the peak of many players’ careers. It’s four years on from their […]

7 years ago

It was a long time coming for Cavan football. 32 years they’d gone without a home win over neighbours Monaghan. A galling statistic  indeed for the province’s most successful football county but they managed to kill two birds with the one stone on Saturday evening. And from the watershed comes the uncharted. Now they’re less […]

7 years ago

Aaron Kernan is conscious not to build Rian O’Neill up too much. But at the same time he knows well that his club-mate is able for the hype. In Crossmaglen, they’ve been waiting for O’Neill to come through for a while. In Armagh, they’ve been counting down the days. And with good reason too. O’Neill […]

7 years ago

Tuesday night lights. Brian Cody looked on last summer as Larchfield emptied. He’d have seen the same in Kell’s Road, in Danesfort, in Tullaroan and in Ballyragget too. Club players twiddling their thumbs for the best months of the year. It’s hardly a new phenomenon but with the round-robin in hurling and the Super 8s […]

7 years ago

It goes from bad to worse for Offaly hurling. It seems like every year the county have reached ‘rock bottom’ but then the next year it gets even worse. Where they’re at now though is as bad it’s been with the Faithful staring down a second successive relegation from the Joe McDonagh Cup to Christy […]

7 years ago

Born in England. Made in Ireland. Luca Connell isn’t yet out of his teenage years but he’s already seen plenty. A Bolton trainee since he was nine years of age, the Manchester club always rated him highly. The Liverpool born youngster picked up invaluable experience across the pond and it was clear from the word […]

7 years ago

The first years of Enniscorthy CBS were singing songs about Istanbul on the way home. Forget Istanbul because what happened on a windless day in Clonad GAA in Portlaoise puts even Liverpool’s class of 2005 in the shade. It’s the Leinster schools ‘B’ first year semi-final between Enniscorthy CBS and Coláiste Choilm Tullamore and to […]

7 years ago

Alan Cadogan was never going to take this lying down. April 2018 and the Cork hurlers are going through their paces. Excitement is building within the county with their hurlers about to chase down a second successive Munster title. Páirc Uí Chaoimh is done up too. The new stadium is smashing and they can’t wait […]

7 years ago

20 minutes in and Tipperary are purring. John Bubbles O’Dwyer picks up a ball around the midfield and he’s already looking for John McGrath. The Loughmore-Castleiney man is on the same wave-length and he leaves no other than Noelie Connors in the vapours. Bubbles bombs off the shoulder for the return. McGrath lands it and […]

7 years ago

Tipperary 2-30 Waterford 0-18 John O’Dwyer jogs around Semple Stadium. Casual. Almost disinterested. Like a worn out player stumbling through a training session that has gone on for way too long, he has the hands on the hips and he’s not up to much. And you’re there in the press box in Thurles wondering what […]

7 years ago

The Carlow minors are training on one side of the pitch. The St Mullin’s under-12s on the other. Hurleys swinging, sliotars flying, the sun-perched GAA grounds in Bahana are hopping. Something has caught Tommy Buggy’s eye. Himself, Pat Mullett and Shem Doyle go way back and the sight of the three coaches chatting on the […]

7 years ago

Summer is here. Last Sunday lit the touch paper, there’s no time to rest on laurels though. It’s week-on-week, it’s championship hurling and this weekend brings another mouth watering round of fixtures. Colm Parkinson and Cheddar Plunkett previewed it all on Thursday’s GAA Hour Hurling Show. Joe McDonagh Cup round two (Saturday) Westmeath v Offaly […]

7 years ago

10 minutes in and Loreto, Coleraine look home and dry. 1-4 without reply and it could have been more. Rathmore of Belfast are in serious bother with a better balanced Derry side dominating this Irish News Ulster schools under-13.5 final. If only the crowd at the Bellaghy GAA grounds in south Derry knew what was […]

7 years ago

Rory Beggan was first brought onto the Monaghan senior panel in 2011. A tall, powerful goalkeeper, one of his main attributes was his ability to kick the ball far and long. Fast forward to 2019 and Beggan is an All-Star number one and though his distance and power from the tee are still strong points, […]

7 years ago

DCU Athletics Club have hit back at the university’s stance that there is no scope for an ‘exceptional circumstance’ claim in the case of athletics coach Enda Fitzpatrick. The Longford man has been the head of athletics in DCU since 2005. He held this role on a secondment basis however on the back of the […]

7 years ago

Daniel Flynn. Paul Cribbin. Two of Kildare’s most dangerous forwards in the championship last year. Key players, prolific scorers as the county made it to the Super 8s. 2019 may be a different story though. Having spent the winter in America, Flynn hasn’t committed for the season while Cribbin barely featured for Cian O’Neill’s side […]

7 years ago

Irish racing needed this like a hole in the head. Henry De Bromhead, Noel Meade, Mouse Morris and obviously Gordon Elliott. They’ll be among the horse racing folk feeling the pinch this morning. But they won’t be alone. It was on Tuesday afternoon when Michael O’Leary announced his intention to wind down operations at Gigginstown […]

7 years ago

Enda Fitzpatrick has been the head of DCU athletics for the last 18 years. Over the course of that time-span, he has overseen and shaped a drastic upturn in the universities’ status, performances and achievements in the athletics field. But it looks like he won’t see a 19th year in Glasnevin. That’s after the Longford […]

7 years ago

Brought to you by Centra #WeAreHurling So good the mentors wanted to join in. Gregory Kennedy is 11 years retired from Galway hurling. Each passing one has hurt more. It was always going to boil over and after years of holding it in, he eventually cracked on Saturday evening. And so the hurling championship for […]

7 years ago

You’ll struggle to see a better wide ball. James Barry mopped up tidily before Paudie Maher pinged a sweet one into a roving Noel McGrath’s path. Inside, Seamie Callanan was dancing. Grass is green and Noel McGrath dropped it on the exact blade the Drom and Inch man had pointed to. Obviously. 1-2 to his […]

7 years ago

It was only 11 months ago when Brendan Maher suffered the toughest blow of his career. Chasing Clare shadows in Semple Stadium, Podge Collins and Ian Galvin were rampant. It wouldn’t be like the Borrisoleigh club man to stand off though and with his county’s life on the line, he made a brave lunge to […]

7 years ago

Waterford 0-22 Clare 1-20 Just who knows? A sideline ball 50 yards out from goal, Austin Gleeson has done it before. On Sunday he didn’t get the chance. A 75th minute Stephen O’Keeffe clearance eventually arrived down from the clouds and with Waterford in dire need of possession to keep this game alive, Patrick Curran […]

7 years ago

You are my master, please score. Liverpool were always going to blaze out of the Anfield shoots with their legs pumping and their hearts racing. On a hiding to nothing, they didn’t have a care in the world and the best they could hope for was to fail beautifully. Didn’t Jurgen Klopp play an absolute […]

7 years ago

Jurgen Klopp called his Liverpool players monsters of mentality. Well in that case, the pop-eyed, coat wearing, fist pumping, sky jumping German is a monster of all things motivation. Georginio Wijnaldum expected to start Wednesday night’s Champions League semi-final against Barcelona. He’d played in the last few Premier League games, played well and when he […]

7 years ago

“…And they are a team of dopes” All hail the Liverpool legends. Fabinho set the tone with his snarls before the game was even two minutes old. Andy Robertson was sticking it to everybody who came near him, Sadio Mane must be one of the fittest individuals on the planet. Trent Alexander Arnold, what else […]

7 years ago

Pace and power that would put any defender on the back foot. Killian Butler wasn’t born in Ireland but Gaelic football has always been his first love. Watching London’s famous 2013 run to the Connacht final inspired him, his brother Philip let him know what had to be done. The older Butler was a key […]

7 years ago

“It was the icing on top of a great day, one I’ll cherish forever” After 13 years down the divisions, the Waterford ladies are back in the big time. They steamrolled Kerry in the Division Two decider in Parnell Park on Sunday and in 2020, they’ll be back playing Division One football. Back where they […]

7 years ago

Johnny Doyle made his championship debut for Allenwood way back in 1997. A whippersnapper 18-year-old then, his name was already spoken of in awed tones around county Kildare. The future, the great white hope, he quickly delivered on all of the promise, helping his county to a Leinster title in his first year up with […]

7 years ago

Mayo 1-21 New York 0-4 It was a stroll in the Gaelic Park for the men of Mayo. Just as well most of the travelling Mayo fans were making a holiday out of their 7000 mile round trip to New York, because they didn’t get much of a game. In a completely alien turn of […]

7 years ago

Smooth as the leather on a span-new O’Neill’s. For a county like Cork, a year without a league title is something of a drought. Two years without an All-Ireland is more of a famine. Ephie O’Sullivan’s group are on a mission in 2019 though and they’re halfway towards the restoration of natural order now. The […]

7 years ago

They said the championship was beginning with a whimper. They said it would it would make much more sense for the summer to begin with a game rather than a formality. They said London didn’t even have a prayer. These exiles are a proud bunch though. As Owen Mulligan said last week, the fight these […]

7 years ago

With hurling renowned as a wide open game and for its free flowing passages of play, there’s no doubting that Walsh Park and its tight confines could have a big say this summer. With a breadth of just 80 metres, Walsh Park in Waterford is the narrowest GAA ground in the country. And while matched […]

7 years ago

Championship season has arrived. After struggling our way through the winter months, summer is here, the championship Sundays are only around the corner, this is what it’s all about. It all kicks off this Sunday when New York host Mayo in an eagerly anticipated Connacht Championship clash in Gaelic Park. The League champions will go […]

7 years ago

The best, and worst thing about all of this is that Ruby Walsh is bowing out at the very peak of his powers. His final hour showed just that. Kemboy pulled and dragged him around Punchestown for three full miles on Wednesday afternoon but Walsh didn’t even flinch. He bided his time, eased his horse […]

7 years ago

What else was there to do? Andy Robertson galloped up and down that left flank like a man possessed. Jordan Henderson was thrown in at the deep end quicker than he could have imagined but he battled and he hassled and he tried. Each and every Liverpool player ran their heart out at the Camp Nou […]

7 years ago

And wasn’t he dead right to? An Anfield legend, a Liverpool hero but Luis Suarez was just doing his job. There’s no point or accuracy in reading any more into it than that. They lauded him, he kissed the crest, they jumped to conclusions. For God’s sake, stop tripping over your own romantic notions, this […]

7 years ago

Ted Walsh puts it best. “He had the mind to do it. He wasn’t a front-running jockey, but when he was in front, you knew he was dangerous. When he wasn’t in front and he was coming from behind, the lads were like, ‘where is he now?’ He had that about him,” he said on […]

7 years ago

Gym work alone isn’t worth diddly squat to a GAA player. If you can’t rise the ball, what good is a set of bulging biceps to you? But if you’re putting in the practice and doing everything you can to master the technical skills of the game alongsides, well then that’s when the gym work […]

7 years ago

He’s been there before. He’s in London long enough now to know not only the effort, but the standards these lads are operating at. It was back in May 2017 when the Tyrone man represented his adopted home in the championship and though they lost to Leitrim that day, it was a very enjoyable experience […]

7 years ago

There’s a buzz in Peter Duggan’s voice. Winter is behind, summer is only around the corner. This is what he’s been waiting for. The League didn’t go too well for the Clare hurlers but he didn’t grow up dreaming about the first half of the year. It’s championship season, there’s a cut in Clare training […]

7 years ago

“Dublin are going to win Leinster, that’s set in stone.” So said Colm Parkinson on Monday’s GAA Hour Show. Meath, Kildare and co. might beg to differ but the majority of football fans will find it difficult to argue that point. The same goes for Munster where Kerry are all over it. The provincial football […]

7 years ago

He’s a Kildare man through and through but 26-year-old Kevin Feely has been all around the world. Born in Brussels, he stayed there speaking French until he was eight years of age. It’s a long way from the Gaelic football talk in Athy but don’t for a second think it meant no GAA. The Feelys […]

7 years ago