During Jim Gavin’s presentation at Sport Ireland’s recent HPX Conference, the Dublin manager noted that there were “some competitors in the audience”, past and present, which probably explained why he was so big on philosophy but so scarce on actual detail, writes Kieran Shannon.

Liam Moggan retired last month from his position with Coaching Ireland. Known as the ‘coach’s coach’, he worked with everyone from Billy Walsh to Brian Kerr to Éamonn Fitzmaurice. But he believes Ireland’s focus on elite sport at the expense of physical education means a generation of kids have been lost

When Special Congress passed the new hurling proposals last Saturday, it threw up all sorts of new challenges and opportunities that it may not even have thought about.

Back in 2004, long before several of Jack McCaffrey’s teammates hauled Mayo defenders to the ground to prevent them from receiving a kickout in the closing moments of an All-Ireland final, his father Noel, along with some other eminent academic colleagues, conducted a study into the attitudes of Irish athletes towards cheating.

Such supremacy is as a measure of the GAA’s negligence as it is of Dublin’s exemplary management, from John Costello to Jim Gavin, writes Kieran Shannon.

As the familiar scene played out – Stephen Cluxton and the Dubs going up the steps of the Hogan Stand while below on the field Mayo men gazed disbelievingly once again into the distance – neutrals above in the press box struggled to catch their breath and process just what they had witnessed.