As you can imagine, the decision to introduce the mandatory wearing of mouthguards at all levels of Gaelic football was met with mixed opinions among inter-county players.

So fare thee well Lance Franklin. We hardly knew ya.

Don’t believe what you’re being sold about the International Rules series.

Football is probably the last thing on people’s minds in Clare right now.

Carlow and Longford, all respect to them, would have been surprised as anybody else to be name-checked in an All-Ireland winning post-match press conference.

Dublin have been a different animal this year. Mayo may take exception to that.

Jonny Cooper’s recollection of Dublin’s grand September day two years ago isn’t as sunny as some of his current colleagues.

Mayo’s 1993 All Star Kevin O’Neill expects the team will keep things tight in the hope of avoiding a repeat of early goal concessions in their last three All-Ireland finals.

This past weekend was spent in the company of a gaggle of St Brigid’s and St Jude’s members.

It would generally be accepted Clare captain Pat Donnellan is more diplomatic than his manager but don’t try and tell him Brian Gavin evened up the score with the amount of additional time he played on Sunday.