There is always a little shock when someone walks out of a dream, walks away from precisely the position they have sought to achieve.

Here’s a statement of the blindingly obvious: it is a massive weekend for Gaelic football. And it is a peculiar kind of massive, because actually winning the league pales in importance besides managing to avoid relegation.

It has happened in countries great and small – from the Olympian cavorting with the Chinese in recent decades to the Argentinian junta’s World Cup of 1978.

Everyone who loves sport has a personal story that explains this love. This is a story which is usually built into the sheer physical pleasure that comes from the act of playing.

The failures of the world of sport to resist the embrace of Putin are also Irish failures. 

This is a notion that is rooted in centuries of rhetoric that find their greatest exposition is phrases such as Duke of Wellington’s supposed claim that the Battle of Waterloo was really won on the playing fields of Eton.

The GAA’s approach to selling tickets to its matches is not reflective of the realities of life for its membership, writes Paul Rouse

It will be interesting to watch how the GAA’s new Strategic Plan – to be launched shortly – will position the role of provinces. This is no straightforward matter. The provincial councils obviously do hugely important work in the organising of schools competitions and in coaching officers. But the long term evolution of the structural organisation of the GAA in terms of flows of money are clearly moving more and more towards direct relationships between Croke Park and individual counties. 

Allowing for the right of innocence until proven guilty, this week has brought shame and much else.

Is the National Football League structure working for those counties who spend almost all of their spring months in Division 4?