It’s about 9.30am on Sunday morning and our 16-seater bus has turned left onto the Via Borgo Palazzo in Bergamo.

If Dublin win, Gavin’s spirit for adventure will be a cause for celebration.

Unlike many of my journalistic colleagues, I welcomed the news Davy Fitzgerald hadn’t attended the Clare press night which was held before Sunday’s All-Ireland final.

It must be the northern air. It must be something. What else can explain the way successful managers are treated at the tip of the country?

In the furore over Hawk-Eye, it is extremely important people don’t miss the really crucial ‘point’: Hawk-Eye is not the problem. Umpires are.

He was so extreme, and the insult he directed at Cavanagh was so over the top the rest of the panel felt obliged to restore some balance to the discussion.

“I don’t see a whole lot wrong with the game. For me, it’s a very good spectacle, yet they’re tinkering with it all the time.”

WE’RE at the Subiaco Oval in Perth. It’s the first Test. Sitting in the press box, I can see that Páraic Duffy has stationed himself at the edge of the tunnel where the players will come onto the pitch.

They say you should never meet your heroes so it was probably just as well that Gary Player didn’t feature on my list of all-time favourite sporting stars when I shared a car journey with him to a golf tournament.

The subject which creates the biggest generational divide among ordinary, decent Irishmen isn’t what many people might think. Forget about the Catholic Church, contraception, abortion, and politics. Those weighty issues are for the newspapers and television. Normal men stay well clear of that type of chat.