Too many Kerry players threw in the towel last weekend but a different attitude can be expected against the Dubs

As Woody Allen might say, if you’re not failing every now and again, you’re not doing anything very innovative

Saying that you admire and respect Joe Brolly in Kerry is in the same parish as an Israelite claiming to like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The outcome of the 2012 Kerry county final was always going to depend on how champions Dr Crokes approached the game.

That the abiding image of the All-Ireland final should be a traditional catch and kick is remarkable, but perhaps we shouldn’t be all that surprised by Michael Murphy’s early goal last weekend given the evolution the grand old game has undergone these past few months.

SOME of us who spent days of indulgence and dissipation in the mid-90s watching films will be familiar with the scene: The opening sequence in Neil Jordan’s film Michael Collins and as the leaders of the Easter 1916 Rising emerge from the smoke to surrender, a disappointed Collins (Liam Neeson) turns to his comrade Harry Boland (Aidan Quinn) and says that next time next time, “we won’t play by their rules, Harry. We’ll invent our own.”

This season’s best wing men, Kevin McLoughlin and Mark McHugh are crucial to the destination of the All-Ireland 2012, writes Dara Ó Cinnéide

Driving home from work a fortnight ago, I tuned into a discussion on RTÉ Radio One in which Giovanni Trapattoni was being hung, drawn and quartered by a panel of experts.

We’ve seen a few different versions of James Horan’s Mayo this year. During the league we saw the side that lost three successive games in March before thrashing Dublin by 12 points on the last day of the month.

The proverb “ní neart go cur le chéile” – unity is strength, came to mind when watching Donegal warm up before their quarter-final with Kerry.