I haven’t written about the Sky-GAA deal yet but brace yourself now, because I really feel I have to.

It was four years ago when Tony Browne sat down with this writer for a long chat about his passion.

They say the new black card system in football has shaved away a good deal of the cynicism. I decided to have a look yesterday at the game I was covering, Derry-Mayo in Croke Park, to see if the evidence bore out the presumption.

The temptation is always to look for the deeper meaning, of course. The extra layer.

Having heard fellow columnist Derval O’Rourke sing the praises of David Epstein’s The Sports Gene, nothing would do me but to track the man down for a chat, and we made contact last week.

There are questions I asked, and questions I wish I’d asked. Over the years in sporting situations, some queries have materialised in the frontal lobes before being pushed to the back of the cranium, where they hang remain, spiky and unfulfilled.

Last Monday, Nate Silver re-launched his website, fivethirtyeight.com, writing a lengthy manifesto to accompany the new-look site, which features an equally lengthy list of new writers.

Make all the noises you want about the team, and the match, and the result, rather it being Brian O’Driscoll’s final international — O’Driscoll himself certainly did so all last week — but there’s no point in being reasonable.

Given that everyone is sharing their Brian O’Driscoll stories, I thought I’d give the benefit of my long history of encounters with the great man.

Identities are still protected under the statute of limitations, but the story bears retelling.