’He checked himself out of hospital to attend those funerals. That’s the kind of person he was’ - Michael Moynihan looks at the life of Danny Bowe, first aid man with Mount Sion GAA club in Waterford

For Cork GAA supporters in Croke Park on Saturday night there was a difference in the categories of pain on offer. Do you like your hope crushed early doors or snuffed out with the finishing line in sight?

THE calls and texts weren’t long arriving last Friday. “Your buddy O’Gara this morning — ” (I always like that description of anyone who ever wrote for a paper anywhere, in any era: ‘your buddy’) “— what is he at?”

Ah, springtime.

Here’s a question for you on a Monday morning. How complicit are you in your sport’s failings?

You probably heard about the Chinese women last week — the runners who beat Sonia O’Sullivan out of gold medals in the World Championships held back in 1993, the ones who supposedly subsisted on turtle blood to set astonishing records in distance running.