Back when I met Dave Hopla last March, he told a story which gives an insight into Kobe Bryant.

HE’LL never be one to bore you with talk of glory days like that guy in the bar in the Bruce song, but on those few occasions when Mick O’Driscoll reflects on the career he’s just left behind, The Miracle Game was probably his day of days alright.

This is new, whatever about being a nadir, for Cork hurling.

As both a player and coach, Mark Keenan has been at the heart of Irish basketball over the past quarter of a century. Tomorrow he coaches a SuperLeague selection to face a British All-Star side — just recognition for one of Ireland’s foremost coaches in any sport.

IT’S hard to know which is the more rash, to make predictions or resolutions at this time of year, but invariably we all end up indulging in some crystal-ball gazing about the 12 months ahead. Just what has 2013 in store?

A month or so before the London Olympics, Billy Walsh travelled down to the Garda Training College in Templemore for a coaching course with a difference.

You’d hardly have noticed but there’s no William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year award this winter.

When you think of him you instantly think of him smiling, his head and body tilted back in his chair, either sharing a joke with his old partner George Hook or maybe even having one at Hook’s expense.

So, they resisted cutting down on the hand-passing of football.

Felix Jones has faced a series of serious injuries that would have made most young players question the wisdom of trying to make a career at the highest level.