I was tempted to follow the two women down the steps and into the tunnel under the Mackey Stand at half-time yesterday, but in the end, I didn’t.

BEYOND the romance, the reality.

During the week I wrote a blog for the paper on the fate of Kevin Ware, the American basketball player who suffered a horrific injury last weekend.

Last week I made a casual reference to ‘the mark’ and the debate at the GAA Congress about this matter.

Ah, the late, late rethink. Bane of the columnist’s life. Last week yours truly had a tasty segment of his column nicely tucked away, simmering like a stew just beginning to brown as the flavours seep through.

Having often stirred up controversy as a fast-talking analyst on The Sunday Game, people thought they knew who Joe Brolly was.

I’m especially good at expectorating, sings Gaston in Beauty and the Beast, and the hunter’s skill with a well-aimed spit is just one more indication that he’s the villain of the piece.

A friend from another media outlet was at Murrayfield for the Ireland-Scotland game a couple of weeks ago, and was surprised to hear a prominent Irish player declare, in the wake of the dismal defeat, that the men in green were “in a good place”.

At the end of last year this column took up the cudgels again in the GAA statistics battle, invoking Jorge Luis Borges in an effort to stimulate the debate.

Everything revolved around his thumb.