“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.

It’s been a longstanding trend in the GAA for the No.2 to get all the glory and none of the gore.

On the Monday after our annual week of sunshine, my wife went to the butchers, where she planned to buy some sausages.

Wet to the skin, cold to the bone, and saddle sore — the rain-drenched cyclists who rode The Glen to Glen Bike last Saturday will always remember the Downings GAA club in Donegal with fond affection.

The Coolnasillagh Road. Up until this year, this two-mile-long mountain pass was used only by stray sheep and the people who lived along its steep slopes.

The sun was shining, the pitch was in pristine shape, and conditions were perfect for Championship football — yet an unmistakable air of melancholy hung around Celtic Park on Sunday.

Getting information out of South Armagh men isn’t easy.