“It does help that we’re both from Cork and we can understand each other.”

It’s Thursday afternoon when I reach him on the phone, and Sean Maguire, just “chilling out” on a last day of rest before starting to climb the Championship mountain with Preston North End again, is reflecting on how Deepdale is no longer such a deep shade of green.

Connacht 47 Leinster 10: On a day when Connacht bade farewell to their talisman from Portumna, along comes another farmer’s son from a few miles away on the other side of the River Shannon to lay down a marker and offer hope for the future with hooker Shane Delahunt producing a remarkable display on a day of celebration in Galway.

It was fitting that Alan Browne’s winner in Preston’s 2-1 Championship win over Huddersfield came late on. A few hours earlier the former Cork City man had been stranded on a motorway en route to Deepdale due to a puncture.