By Daragh Ó Conchúir Tipperary will play in the National Camogie League Division 1 Final for the first time in 11 years after shocking champions and All-Ireland queens Galway in a pulsating affair at Duggan Park. Tipp 1-8 Galway 0-10 The Premier women failed to score in the second half but produced some heroic defending […]

6 years ago

Brian Howard ain’t saying nothing… And why would he? Fermanagh and Armagh are ready to renew rivalries and Ryan McCluskey, not long out of the Fermanagh camp, helps us preview that one. That and much more chat about the news in football this week. Watch the show here.

6 years ago

On the face of it, the Premier Golfing League looks an idealised paradise. The world’s best golfers, shooting it out every other weekend for a greater slice of the money each time. The top 48 get the privileges they deserve and spectators get to see them, in all their glory over all the best courses. […]

6 years ago

“I’m one of those guys that’s very easy to like when he’s on your side, but very easy to hate when he’s on the other…” Hatred in sport, is often one of the best compliments you could pay. A bad player will never be hated. Amongst the opposition, Kieran Donaghy wouldn’t have been one of […]

6 years ago

Coronavirus permitting… It better get lost for next week anyway! The Cheltenham festival is one of a kind. The bookies are crammed with workers on their lunch break and students in a mad scramble to get a fiver down before the off. Where else would you get it? For one week in March, the whole […]

6 years ago

Club hurling belongs to Ballyhale Shamrocks right now. Champions for two years on the trot, this young team could easily go onto make it three, or even four in a row. A small area in south Kilkenny, hurling is their identity and their passion. Without it, they would be just another run-of-the-mill Irish village, with […]

6 years ago

Corofin did the three in a row. Liam Silke and Martin Farragher have won their third Club All-Stars in a row. Unsurprisingly, the kingpins of club football lead the way on this AIB GAA Club team of the year for 2019/2020 with seven of the Galway club’s history makers earning the plaudits. Behind them, the […]

6 years ago

Shane O’Donnell doesn’t normally settle for a point but these were exceptional circumstances. Goals populate the Éire Óg Ennis club man’s mind even in the most improbable and unlikely of situations, but when Tony Kelly sent a long, deep ball over the Clare full forward line against Dublin on Sunday, not even the most forewarned […]

6 years ago

“That’s not just handbags, there is a lot of really serious punches being thrown in that thing…” The storm lent Dublin and Tyrone every excuse for a scrappy, feisty affair in Healy Park, Omagh, but to each and every player’s credit, the game was high quality and it was played in good spirits. There were […]

6 years ago

For a moment, it looked like Dean Rock’s right footed swinger was going straight over the black spot. Then the Healy Park breeze intervened and it wasn’t long before the ball was landing…about 40 yards away from the goals. Storm Jorge caused havoc all over this island on Saturday with games falling by the wayside […]

6 years ago

As of summer 2020, the Super 8s will have a new look. No longer will Croke Park be the competition’s de facto HQ. County and provincial grounds are going to receive a slice of the pie and on the whole, the competition will be a much fairer and much more balanced play-off. GAA congress is […]

6 years ago

Slaughtneil is a community of no more than 300 families. Yet the standard bearing Derry club field three camogie teams. On Sunday, the first of those aim to become only the second club ever, after Buffers’ Alley of Wexford, to win four All-Ireland senior camogie titles in a row. The Slaughtneil story is an amazing […]

6 years ago

Davy Fitzgerald has a memory like an elephant. He remembers a referee beckoning him from the tunnel out to the pitch at half-time during a Clare game, just so he could give Davy a “dressing down” in public. He will never forget another referee telling his LIT centre forward that ‘your manager doesn’t help you, […]

6 years ago

The 3Arena meets Chase the Sun. The darts is in Dublin, for one night and one night only. It’s a night darts connoisseurs and casual fans alike have been waiting for ever since Peter Wright turned it on over Christmas, it’s a night Willie The Magpie O’Connor has been dreaming about since he left the […]

6 years ago

Cian Kenny swings like a pumped up boxer. The Kilkenny youngster lets loose, he shakes up the wrists and then he starts spinning rocks like DJ Carey in his pomp. Eoin Larkin likes what he sees. The eight-time All-Ireland winner with Kilkenny is a straight talker, who doesn’t suffer dossing hurlers gladly and a scan […]

6 years ago

Wexford 2-14 Dublin 0-18 It took a while to get going in Croke Park. Scraps, rucks and sidelines were the name of the first twenty minutes. Mattie Kenny and Davy Fitzgerald effed and blinded, both managers confounded by referee Johnny Murphy’s fussiness. But aside from the men on the sideline going at it – right […]

6 years ago

Growing up, David McInerney won everything. A Munster minor with Clare, two under-21 All-Irelands and in his first year senior, he came back with an All-Ireland medal and an All-Star award. It wouldn’t be a bad tally to retire on, but McInerney and his Clare colleagues had the mantelpieces stacked by 21. Logic suggested that […]

6 years ago

“All these lads I’m talking about here, were good trainers…” He mightn’t like you, he might cut you in half with an almighty dig but as long as you’ve played alongside him, and have given your all in ‘the trenches’ with him, you’ll have Roy Keane’s respect and the Cork man’s respect is one of […]

6 years ago

If ever the desperate situation arises in a game where you want anything other than the ball to come your way…you know what’s going to happen next. It could be a broken hurley, it could be an injured ankle or you could be just ran off your feet to the extent that they won’t hold […]

6 years ago

Wexford 1-16 Kilkenny 1-14 Davy Fitz just gets the best out of players, doesn’t he? For the fourth time in their last five meetings, Wexford have gotten the better of Kilkenny. For the seventh time since Davy Fitzgerald took over as Wexford manager in 2017, his side have beaten Brian Cody’s team. And though this […]

6 years ago

Clare 0-17 Laois 0-9 The Tony Kelly show. If he scores one early, the possibilities are endless. The confidence is sky high and the game is all his. Heading down to Cusack Park on Sunday morning, the supporters were doubtful, with the west of Ireland weather at its wild and disobedient worst. Many wondered how […]

6 years ago

“When you’re the waterboy you can still run onto the pitch, you know cause a bit of hassle if you need to, hop off a few fellas maybe, so ah, I’d probably be the waterboy…” The club is where it starts, the club is where it finishes. Distractions, travel, county teams and other commitments can […]

6 years ago

Footballer of the Year, four-time All-Star, five-time All-Ireland winner, All-Ireland final man of the match. For six years, Brian Fenton has been unbeaten in Championship football for Dublin and for six years, he hasn’t met a fellow midfielder who could touch him. As far as Gaelic football is concerned, Brian Fenton is the king of […]

6 years ago

From a hurling perspective, the black card is better off keeping its distance. Hurling traditionalists are a sturdy folk who more often than not, view change with a cautious scepticism. They see little wrong with their game and don’t associate ugly terms like cynicism, blanket defences or indeed, the dreaded black card with their sacred […]

6 years ago

Shane Conway dances around the hurling pitch like a kangaroo on springs. The ball does as the Lixnaw man wishes and when he drops the shoulder and goes, you haven’t a hope of catching him. There was one stage in Wednesday night’s Fitzgibbon Cup final when the Kerryman slipped trying to control the ball. The […]

6 years ago

UCC 0-18 IT Carlow 2-11 UCC don’t do it the easy way but the hard way has never stopped them before. Fitzgibbon Cup champions for a record 40th time, the Cork college had to summon their Lazarus instincts once more to come from six points down to beat a gallant IT Carlow team. Darragh Fitzgibbon […]

6 years ago

“Not too long ago, it was just get the ball and drive it, and then they’d drive it back…” In ten years, hurling has changed immeasurably. An impatient Joey Holden was knocking on the Kilkenny door at the start of the last decade, when the Cats and Tipperary were in the middle of hurling’s most […]

6 years ago

Sometimes, you don’t even have to read between the lines. Sometimes, you don’t even have to listen. Mick McCarthy has been managing teams since 1992, when he became the player-manager of Milwall, and somewhere in between the 29 years of trial and tribulation that have followed, he’s found his formula. Mick’s way, a direct and traditional […]

6 years ago

One of Padraic Joyce’s first acts as Galway manager was to make Shane Walsh captain. It was an early statement of intent. Much like when Eamon O’Shea entrusted Seamus Callanan with Tipperary’s free-taking duties in 2014, the manager showed faith and the player responded. In Callanan’s case, he transformed from a potentially game-changing player to […]

6 years ago

Conor McKenna has been Down Under since 2014. He’s been one of Ireland’s most successful AFL exports, having made his breakthrough almost instantly upon arrival and ever since, he’s established himself as one of Essendon’s key players. 2019 was his most successful season yet, with the half back McKenna making 22 appearances for ‘the Bombers’ […]

6 years ago

God bless Keith Ricken. Hail him, clone him and worship that man to the high heavens. He’s a county manager who gets it. “I get requests to release players and I laugh,” he said recently to Balls.ie. “Because it’s like I’m a prison warden – I never have and never will stop a lad playing […]

6 years ago

David Clifford is one of the coolest customers around. Jersey tugs, skint heels and verbals are an all too familiar tale for the most marked man in Gaelic football, but it says it all about the Fossa club man that you will rarely, if ever see him getting involved in off the ball flash-points. Remonstrating […]

6 years ago

Niall Kearns was presented with the man-of-the-match award but it was no consolation. The man was sickened and he couldn’t hide it. Monaghan had ran Dublin ragged for the guts of an hour, ferocious tackling, powerful running, brave decision making and all but ultimately, they failed to close out their victory. They put themselves in […]

6 years ago

UCC 0-18 DCU 0-17 The rain was falling, the wind was howling and the grass was dug up. The scores were level but the time was up. Extra-time looked a stone cold certainty, until a sliotar slipped away from a DCU body and out of play. In any normal circumstances, you wouldn’t worry about a […]

6 years ago

IT Carlow 5-14 Mary I 0-15 Goals win games and IT Carlow go for the jugular. Having raised five green flags in their quarter final win over NUIG, IT Carlow continued their goal blitz of the Fitzgibbon Cup with another five in a semi-final win over Mary I here, to make their way to the […]

6 years ago

It seems strange to say it now, but Ciaran Sheehan’s AFL journey couldn’t have began any smoother. 14 VFL games in his first season, Sheehan was playing so well that Carlton fast-tracked him into their first team ahead of schedule. He’d go onto play the last four games of the AFL season, earning the best […]

6 years ago

The weekend is no longer, but there’s a Super Saturday of Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup hurling only just around the corner. Glasnevin is the destination and the Fitzgibbon Cup is the attraction. It’s semi-final time, as some of the brightest young hurlers in the country head for north Dublin with a coveted college’s medal in […]

6 years ago

Mickey Harte woke up on the right side of the bed this morning. A winter of fear, worry and regret ends, he can smell the summer ball now, with a full deck of cards up his sleeve. About to give up on 2020, Mickey Harte has just heard the Cathal McShane newspic.twitter.com/0lPVMM1GQJ — GAA JOE […]

6 years ago

Heading into college. New things. Big changes. Sporting dreams. What about the hurling? James Burke, Simon Leacy and Rian Boran have always stood out in Kildare. With Naas, the ’98 models’ were some of the best they’d seen. In school, they were the key men but college’s hurling you must understand, is no place for […]

6 years ago

As a hurling lover, discovering that Tony Kelly is only just gone 26 is like finding a stray €20 in an old pocket. A clench of the fists and a smug head. Now we’re hurling. We’ve had him, graceful points, genius touches, flicks, tricks and pumping runs since 2013 and don’t deserve him for much […]

6 years ago

Cork have found themselves a full back. On form, Jason Forde is one of the most lethal forwards in hurling but Robert Downey had the better of him. He’s just 20 years of age, the Glen Rovers youngster, and he’s only in his second year on the Cork senior team but in two weeks when […]

6 years ago

If you’re going to make it as a hurler, you’ll need to do a lot more than just train. Training is when a manager issues tactical advice and instruction. It’s when the basic skills of the game are practiced and refined but before you make it over to the field, it’s imperative that you have […]

6 years ago

Summer 2018 and Katie Power broke Galway hearts with a hand-pass goal. It was the All-Ireland senior camogie semi-final between Galway and Kilkenny and the teams were delicately poised heading into the closing stages at Semple Stadium. A goal would win it you felt, as the teams headed into the final quarter. Right on cue, […]

6 years ago

And then there were four. The Fitzgibbon Cup has been whittled down to its final four and it’s almost impossible to pick a winner. Last year’s champs UCC are still standing with a relatively similar pick while the beaten finalists Mary I are back with a new-look bunch. Tim O’Mahony, Andrew Ormond and Diarmuid Ryan […]

6 years ago

They’d always rated Thomas Edward Donohoe around Crosskeys and Drumavaddy, and he’s worn a Cavan jersey before. The Denn club man was an integral part of the county minor team that made it to the Ulster final against Derry in 2015, but when you play for a junior club like Donohoe does, it’s hard to […]

6 years ago

DCU 0-14 IT Carlow 0-7 A flawless display from David Garland helped DCU to a first Sigerson Cup since 2015 on their home turf this evening. The Monaghan attacker had too much pace and too much guile for IT Carlow under the Glasnevin lights as he kicked four of the finest from open play and […]

6 years ago

“I think this team are better than one All-Ireland, for all the talent that’s there, I find that difficult to comprehend…” Camogie is a vocation for Katie Power. 14 years a Kilkenny senior, she’s a stalwart of the black and amber jersey who’s seen good times and bad, who’s cherished the highs and been traumatised […]

6 years ago

“Just go out and hurl with abandon.” Sometimes, some skills, moments or actions live beyond the game, regardless of winning or losing. Some things just stand the test of time. That moment is what we all strive for when we pull on our GAA jerseys be they county or club, but so few can claim […]

6 years ago

Mayo 2-13 Donegal 0-19 Don’t write Mayo off, even when they’re losing by three and time is up. Donegal played like winners, from pillar to post in this League opener in Ballybofey but when Mayo are involved and we should know this by now, things rarely follow expected or indeed deserved lines. This time, it […]

6 years ago

Na Gaeil 3-20 Rathgarogue Cushinstown 1-5 Na Gaeil were always going to win this one. The Kerry junior champions are usually strong and the Tralee club have two Kerry seniors in midfield. Diarmuid O’Connor and Jack Barry played in last year’s All-Ireland final against Dublin and for a club like Rathgarogue Cushinstown, that’s far-fetched fantasy […]

6 years ago