Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final between Kilkenny and Waterford followed a template we’ve become familiar with this season: A great deal of anticipation followed closely by a vague sense of disappointment.

Developments across the water caught my eye last week, specifically some news filtering out of Newcastle and Glasgow.

The Olympic movement, which now seems to be vying with the oily creeps of FIFA in a race for irrelevance, took a pretty substantial lead in that particular headlong rush a few days ago.

When the playwright Tom Murphy wrote A Crucial Week In The Life Of A Grocer’s Assistant, he might have been a bit previous in choosing his subject.

The late, great Johnny Clifford had a handy expression for occasions like these.

A week in the life of women and sport, eh?

Given the noses in the southwest which were put out of joint last Friday by Conor McCarthy’s piece in these pages, should we start with off-field competition?

Derek McGrath mentioned it in passing last week but it’s a game worth revisiting.

Amanda Marcotte of the online magazine Slate did the state some service recently when pinpointing a flaw or two in the admittedly tired criticism of the Women’s World Cup, which was running over the past few weeks.

The GAA line you’ve heard and seen all summer is a simple one.