To curve or to swerve — that is the question.

Kerry great Aidan O’Mahony has admitted he’d start towering Tommy Walsh in the All-Ireland final replay but reckons boss Peter Keane will hold him in reserve once again.

The Connacht senior football championship is “as hard as any province to win”, according to Galway manager Kevin Walsh.

We had the Holy Communion in the house last week, our two boys decked out in their three-piece suits like they were about to appear on The Sunday Game, and along with the rest of their classmates, they enjoyed the ceremony and celebrations under gorgeous May sunshine.

Finisher. That’s the term managers prefer to use these days when selling and telling a player that they’re not starting the next day but should see action at some point.

When Alan Brogan recently selected the 15 footballers he felt should be honoured at Friday’s All-Stars, he ran out of superlatives for Brian Fenton.

You know something isn’t quite right when a Dublin great is sitting across the table and expressing the hope that his boys will be put to the pin of their collar on Sunday.

It isn’t so long since Alan Brogan and others were speculating as to whether Stephen Cluxton’s guardianship of the Dublin nets would stretch past the quiet one’s 40th birthday.

Several current and former inter-county players have taken to Twitter to express their disagreement with Sport Ireland’s decision to withhold last year’s Government grants.

Barney Rock considers the 2014 All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Donegal as one of the toughest lessons this current Dublin side has learned, but suggests last year’s Division 1 final loss to Kerry was just as informative to Jim Gavin.

Alan Brogan expects that his brother Bernard will be aiming to return to action for Dublin in the latter stages of the Championship, despite undergoing cruciate surgery last week.

Dillon remained underrated both inside and outside his own county, right up until he announced his retirement yesterday morning, writes Kieran Shannon

For the first time in the history of the PwC All-Stars, there are four candidates for the footballer of the year including two goalkeepers, David Clarke and Stephen Cluxton, writes John Fogarty.

For the first time in the history of the PwC All-Stars, there are four candidates for the footballer of the year including two goalkeepers, David Clarke and Stephen Cluxton.

Ahead of Sunday’s first Championship clash between Tyrone and Dublin since 2011, former Tyrone footballer Owen Mulligan claims Mickey Harte must be offered a fresh deal, that Sean Cavanaghm should stay on too, and that the Red Hands are poised for success.

The world was a much different place in May 2001, when Stephen Cluxton made his first Championship appearance for Dublin, writes Paul Keane.

Alan Brogan didn’t stick around too long when it became apparent he was an impact substitute for Dublin.

Castleknock, St Brigid’s and Ballymun Kickhams all advanced to the quarter-finals of the Dublin Senior Football Championship with wins over St Oliver Plunketts/Eoghan Ruadh, Thomas Davis and St Mary’s Saggart, respectively, on Saturday.

There was a time when the mention of Dublin’s senior footballers in a Kerry pub didn’t compel patrons to drink deep (to paraphrase the Austin Clarke poem). That was when the idea of a Dublin manager extending his record against Kerry to seven wins from eight meetings would have been ridiculed.

Marc Ó Sé’s former college mate Alan Brogan has led the tributes to the retired Kerry defender, describing him as the best corner-back of the last 15 years.

Dublin will be rightly hailed as one of the truly great sides and are in the middle of writing a very special history for themselves, writes Mike Quirke.

Concerted campaign or just a confluence of opinions?

Chekhov’s gun. It’s a literary, ahem, thing. Erudite and discerning folk that they are, readers of the Irish Examiner’s sports section will be familiar with the concept. 

Former Mayo footballer Trevor Mortimer says the series of negative comments from Dublin figures about Lee Keegan shows the champions are rattled going into tomorrow’s All-Ireland final replay.

Former Dublin defender Ger Brennan believes the All-Ireland holders have grown too cautious and need to rekindle their spirit of ‘adventure’ to beat Mayo at the second attempt.

The Central Competitions Control Committee (CCCC) are investigating the cause of scuffles between Dublin and Mayo players prior to Sunday’s All-Ireland final.

It’s the hope that gets you every time. You subconsciously start to build walls after disappointments to protect yourself, and you insist you won’t let the same blind faith seep in and cloud your judgement again.

Once he was on Jim McGuinness’s wedding invite list. Now he’s on Jim’s blacklist. And his own club’s list of suspended members. 

Dublin 1-10 Donegal 0-7: Donegal manager Rory Gallagher has insisted that the county has no interest in pursuing James McCarthy any further over a dangerous incident shortly before his dismissal.