Ned Kelly, the Irish-Australian folk hero, was a man who robbed, pillaged and murdered his way through life.

Between the Olympic Games and the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-finals, Gaelic football hasn’t featured prominently on too many radars over the last few weeks.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt

I WAS down at the canal helping friends move a barge which had been moored on the same spot for some time.

It’s difficult to know whether Justin McNulty and his Laois players actually wanted to win the game or were they more concerned with not getting a heavy drubbing, as many expected.

If I have one regret from this year’s championship it is that I didn’t cynically block Conor Laverty’s run in the closing stages of our first-half against Down in the Ulster semi-final.

Following a club league game on Friday night, I watched the opening ceremony of the London Olympics with my team-mates in the local.

Saturday evening’s encounter between Tyrone and Kerry meant many things to many people.

This weekend saw a host of the GAA’s longest serving ambassadors line out for their respective counties.

The GAA calendar is a mixed bag at this time of year with the opening qualifier rounds running parallel to the provincial showpieces.