Of all the rows ‘The Sunday Game’ programmes generated during the last 40 years, perhaps changing the theme tune 15 years ago was the greatest of them. Here our GAA correspondent John Fogarty lists 10 of the controversies prompted by comments and quotes.

Ten years ought to constitute a sufficient sample size for undertakings such as these and in the present instance it does. It was not a difficult team to pick, nor should it have been.

Patrick Horgan has been shortlisted for 2019 PwC Hurler of the Year award, along with Tipperary and Kilkenny captains Séamus Callanan and TJ Reid.

Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird has always acted as a sounding board for my thoughts on management and life in general.

Colin Sheridan With the sporting summer we’ve so far had — Irish cricketers storming Lord’s, young Irish soccer players dazzling in Europe, young Irish sprinters winning medals, and some lad from Clara winning the Open up north, you could almost be forgiven for forgetting about the hurling.

The GAA’s National Hurling and Camogie Development Provincial Workshops have been confirmed for this summer with sessions planned in all four provinces.

Cork are Cork. Or are they?

If Derek McGrath came equipped with a fuel gauge then the red warning light would have been flashing at a worrying rate by the time he finally stepped away from his role as Waterford hurling manager after five years last summer.

I met Nickey Brennan in the lift on the way out of Croke Park yesterday. “If ever a system needed to be redressed,” I said to him, “the set-up with the Galway club champions has to change.”

Davy Fitzgerald is minding his p’s and q’s as well as his f’s.

I’m so pleased for Limerick.

At the end of the match yesterday, I shook hands with Dave Punch, the former Limerick hurler, who works for RTÉ. He asked me if I saw the attendance. I did, I said — 71,000. Dave corrected me. ‘No, Dalo, 71,073.’

At the end of the match yesterday, I shook hands with Dave Punch, the former Limerick hurler, who works for RTÉ. He asked me if I saw the attendance. I did, I said — 71,000. Dave corrected me. ‘No, Dalo, 71,073.’ 

As we wave goodbye to the inaugural Munster senior hurling championship round robin this weekend, John Fogarty makes some observations on the old and the new in Sunday’s final round.

Hours after Sunday’s latest Munster SHC draw, Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh thumbed a message on the Waterford WhatsApp players group. Nodding to his fumble that led to Patrick Maher’s first goal, he claimed responsibility for the draw but vowed to make amends against Limerick this Sunday and encouraged his team-mates to look ahead to the game.

Derek McGrath is discussing the sanctity of the dressing room. It couldn’t be more important now as seemingly everyone but John Mullane has them down to be also-rans in Munster this year.

I was working for RTÉ Radio 1 on the evening that Tipperary annihilated Galway in the 2010 All-Ireland U21 final.

Despite losing Austin Gleeson to injury, Mount Sion overcame fierce rivals Roanmore 2-12 to 1-14 at Walsh Park on Saturday night.

While most of the talk around the new-look hurling championship has been how it will severely test the depth and durability of each panel, Walsh Park’s hosting of Kilkenny at the weekend brought to light how it’ll test the suitability of certain provincial grounds as well.

There can’t be many upsides to losing an All-Ireland final but it was put to Kevin Moran yesterday that their loss to Galway had at least avoided the spectacle of John Mullane riding a horse through Waterford City in his birthday suit.

IN the run-up to any All-Ireland final, there are feet and yards of newsprint written about the usual suspects: The teams, the players, the managers, their families and the fans, writes Colm O'Regan.

No unadorned surface has been left untouched, no bare space undecorated, as walls, animals, bales of hay, and cars have been given the blue and white treatment as Waterford fans prepare for their first All-Ireland final in nine years, with their heroes attempting to bridge a winning gap stretching to 1959.

Here's your lunchtime news bulletin.

It feels like only yesterday hurling supporters were venturing to Thurles for the Cork-Tipperary Munster SHC quarter-final. Now we are just days away from the most novel All-Ireland final-day for many, many years.

Dan Shanahan makes no bones about it: “Semi-finals are about winning; if it’s eight points to seven with 10 sweepers, we’ll take it.”

As Galway v Tipperary games go, Anthony Daly felt yesterday’s was on another level.

Too many games is never a bad complaint but this past weekend’s inter-county GAA action and affairs takes a lot of digesting.

it might have been Jim Gavin who appeared in front of the media on Sunday but he could have been mistaken for Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard with his “yeah but, no but” defence of Diarmuid Connolly, writes John Fogarty.

Tomorrow evening’s Leinster semi-final could end up an axis tilt, writes PM O’Sullivan.

They were sitting in silence on a winter’s night in the Carrigtwohill club rooms, with the only sound that of a hurler belting a sliotar in the adjacent ball alley.