Let’s start with a question. What, in your opinion, is the most important fixture on the sports calendar this week?

Too often we lump antipodeans into the same cultural basket.

It is hard to avoid the sense that Ireland’s rugby provinces now find themselves at a crossroads, suggests Brendan O'Brien. 

Not a puck did we see of Saturday’s All-Ireland hurling final replay.

Feelings.

You may or may not have heard the news about Cricket Ireland’s rather stunning sponsorship coup earlier this week.

Eamon McGee just couldn’t take it anymore.

Ask Paul Durcan what swung the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin in favour of Donegal and he will plump for what he terms his side’s "exceptional attacking play", but the goalkeeper was the lead character in the passion play’s seminal moment.

The changing names of those clubs filling out the fixtures and tables are to be welcomed on the basis that change is not to be feared.

If the last week has shown us anything — and we say this without any intended pun regarding the coming All-Ireland hurling final between Kilkenny and Tipperary — it is that there is more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to the tricky business of managing a team.