The sight of thousands of Mayo young supporters on the field at MacHale Park after yesterday’s win over Monaghan was a timely reminder of just how popular the county’s footballers have become in recent years.

Limerick manager John Kiely paid tribute to his panel yesterday for maintaining their standards since winning last year’s All-Ireland success, saying “all the credit goes to the players” for kicking on to reach the Allianz League final.

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Galway captain Damien Comer has bullishly declared that the rapidly improving Tribesmen are capable of winning this year’s All-Ireland.

All-Ireland winning Tipperary captain Brendan Maher has admitted he was partly to blame for pushing his team-mates too hard last year.

Table-toppers Dublin continued their relentless march through this Allianz League campaign with a routine victory over beaten All-Ireland finalists Mayo in Castlebar.

Kerry footballer Brendan O'Sullivan failed a doping control test following the Allianz league final of 2016.

Tipperary have confirmed that they will appeal against Jason Forde’s one-match suspension, which currently rules the Silvermines player out of the Munster SHC quarter-final against Cork on Sunday week.

Jim Gavin has stoked the embers of his simmering row with Éamonn Fitzmaurice, insisting that his Dublin team is not cynical and that such claims are influencing referees.

Had his life taken a different path then Pádraig O’Connor might have been preparing with the Kerry squad for Sunday’s Allianz Football League Division 1 final against Dublin.

Afterwards there were tales of rape and pillage, of drug tests in dungeons. But the 11-point winning margin for Dublin in yesterday’s League Division 1 final is as good a metric as any by which to fire the engines of the summer scrimmage.

ÉAMONN Fitzmaurice was referring to Stephen Cluxton’s radar kickouts, but he might have been subconsciously alluding to Kerry’s inexplicable no-show in last year’s All-Ireland final.

They’ve contested the last two Electric Ireland Munster minor hurling finals but Waterford or Limerick will bow out of the championship in Thurles this evening (7pm).

The English teacher is bringing new challenges to the Waterford hurlers but is learning about himself as he goes. Be less sensitive. Be truer to himself. And get the balance right between instinct and structure. Ahead of the Allianz league final, Derek McGrath offers a fascinating window to the dressing room, writes Michael Moynihan

Tipperary must play on the front foot on Sunday, while at all times maintaining a strict defensive system, suggests Jackie Cahill. 

Donegal was plunged into crisis last night with coach Damien Diver confirming four players have left the panel, the most high-profile being former All Star Mark McHugh.

Eamon O'Shea has received a vote of confidence from the Tipperary County Board after they granted him two more years as the county's senior hurling manager.

Tyrone ace Stephen O'Neill and Kilkenny's Lester Ryan have picked up the GAA-GPA Footballer and Hurler of the League awards respectively today in Croke Park.

Kilkenny have made two changes to their team for Sunday's Allianz League final against Tipperary at Nowlan Park.

There was a time when Joe McMahon took great pride in holding the Indian sign over Dublin.

Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna said the cost of installing Hawk-Eye score detection technology at Croke Park was ‘a serious six figure sum’.

A top Dublin footballer has been hit with a proposed three-match ban for biting Donegal’s Patrick McBrearty — but last night vowed to appeal.

Dublin defender Rory O'Carroll is back in light training after undergoing ankle surgery last month, and expects to be fully fit within the next three weeks.

Cork manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy has made six changes from the team that lost to Kilkenny in the Allianz League final ahead of Sunday's Munster SHC semi-final against Tipperary.

DUBLIN’S Peter Kelly will be avoiding the newspapers and sports bulletins between now and Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Limerick.

THEY say you learn more in defeat than victory and, true to the old adage, Dublin’s second Leinster final loss to Kilkenny in three years yielded a pile of harsh lessons.

HAVING looked on as his team went missing out on the pitch, Justin McNulty followed suit by failing to show for the post-match press conference.

LIMERICK selector Ciarán Carey insists the team are “very much a work-in-progress” as they prepare for a Munster senior hurling championship date with Waterford next month.

WARM-WEATHER training camps may have come at a price for some GAA counties — but already Dublin hurlers can claim it’s money well spent.

WELL, Emerson said the best period to be born in is when the old and the new stand side by side (Ralph Emerson, by the way; not Hughie).

CLARE captain Pat Vaughan believes Division Two hurling is continuing to stunt the development of Ger O’Loughlin’s team.

JACK O’Connor was in relaxed mood in Killarney yesterday, very different from the game in Omagh against their All-Ireland conquerors and much more relaxed than he had been after drawing with Dublin a week ago.

The Kilkenny hurling squad has been presented with a new Toyota Corolla in recognition of their victory over Tipperary in the recent Allianz League Final.

By Jim O’Sullivan THE poor demand for tickets in advance of Clare’s Guinness Munster hurling championship game against Tipperary reflected the lack of faith in the team amongst supporters after a poor NHL campaign.