Dublin’s four-time All-Star Paul Flynn has defended both the All-Ireland champions and the GPA against recent attacks by newspaper columnists.

Derry footballer Chrissy McKaigue believes GAA top-brass could have done more to keep alive the inter-provincial series.

The cruciate was the worst. The cruciate is always the worst.

It was late spring when the first withdrawal symptom sprouted like a new leaf on a tree.

Mark Breheny holds the distinction of being the longest-serving player in inter-county football, having made his Sligo debut in 2000. Now 36, he has an encyclopaedic memory of the matches he’s played along the way.

Thanks to events across the Atlantic this autumn, “normalising” will go down as one of the words of the year. The man who promoted it, New Yorker magazine editor David Remnick, deserves praise for providing an essential tool in describing the GUBU US Presidential election.

Captain Conor McManus admits the departures of Dick Clerkin and Paul Finlay will affect the Monaghan set-up, but has put it up to his younger team-mates to make up an experience deficit in 2017 and make amends for this year’s disappointment.

Few smiles have been raised this summer when the ‘black card’ has come up in conversations, and this column doesn’t aim to change that.

Like many this week, I was somewhat surprised when I learned about the GPA’s significantly improved deal with the GAA, and the cordial manner in which it was negotiated. Rumblings earlier in the season from the GAA’s inner sanctum gave an impression that relationships between the two associations were on the wane. This new deal certainly refutes that suggestion.

Eugene McGee has called for the appointment of full-time referees in Gaelic football to improve the standard of officiating in the game.

Sligo captain Mark Breheny believes the football qualifiers have run their course and reckons change is necessary so to keep fresh the All-Ireland SFC format.

Malachy O’Rourke couldn’t help but feel a little short-changed after an exciting afternoon in Clones.

Conor McManus will delay an inevitable operation on a troublesome hip because of the impact it could have on his football.

Cian O’Sullivan may have been helped off the field after Dublin’s semi-final replay victory over Mayo last Sunday, but Jim Gavin was bullish yesterday about the centre-back’s prospects of facing Kerry in the All-Ireland final.

Good evening. Here’s a briefing on some of the stories and issues highlighted on irishexaminer.com today.

When it come to the physical side there needs to be an acceptance that the lines can be crossed at times without the game being called into disrepute. It’s accepted in hurling, so why not in football, asks Dick Clerkin

GAA retirements have become very fashionable these days.

Malachy O’Rourke admitted he’d be disappointed if Tyrone’s Tiernan McCann feigned injury to get Darren Hughes dismissed.

Nine years Conor McManus has spent in the Monaghan shirt, on but one occasion was he overlooked.

Michael Murphy mightn’t have been happy with the performance but he was at least content in the knowledge last Saturday has dispelled some of the perceptions that Donegal were going to stroll to another Ulster championship.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Gaelic football was told to contact its solicitor, get its affairs in order. 

Dick Clerkin has been knocking about Monaghan’s senior panel for 16 years and the veteran midfielder has little doubt that Conor McManus is the best player he has soldiered with in all that time.

Monaghan 0-16 Cavan 0-15: LOGIC and basic biology tell us that there will come a time when Cavan’s burgeoning youth will overtake Monaghan’s grizzled vets, but that was postponed yesterday thanks to the nous and experience of Malachy O’Rourke’s wily old soldiers.

Limerick hurling manager TJ Ryan has given three debuts for Sunday’s Munster SHC quarter-final clash with Clare in Semple Stadium (throw-in 4pm).

DUBLIN 0-17 MONAGHAN 0-16: It took a while, but the Allianz Football League semi-finals finally flickered to life with less than 15 minutes to play in the second contest, thanks to Monaghan’s late and unexpected surge for a place in the decider.

New GAA playing rules chairman Jarlath Burns admits he now feels under pressure to come up with solutions after announcing the “death of Gaelic football” at the weekend.

It was hard to know which prompted the greater sense of outrage last Saturday night: the way Dublin and especially Derry went about the joyless business of trying to get a result in Croker or Jarlath Burns declaring via Twitter that the game signalled ‘The death of Gaelic football’, writes Kieran Shannon.

Monaghan’s Dick Clerkin says recently-appointed playing rules committee chairman Jarlath Burns was wrong to describe Saturday’s Dublin-Derry game as “the death of Gaelic football”.

Tyrone 0-9 Monaghan 1-13: Allianz Football League Division 1: It’s three years since Seamus McEneaney’s era ended and the obituaries were written for this generation of Monaghan footballers, but the team he built continues to show obvious signs of rude health under Malachy O’Rourke.

Using extreme examples of some questionable training regimes, Joe Brolly is tarring everyone with the same brush in an effort to strengthen an argument, writes Dick Clerkin.

This weekend three years ago Kevin Cassidy played in the infamous/immortal Donegal-Dublin All-Ireland semi-final. He did not know at the time it would be his last game for the county. But since his fallout with Jim McGuinness life went on, and he moved on.

Dublin 2-22 Monaghan 0-11

Another awesome attacking master-class from the Dubs blew Monaghan away at Croke Park.

Lambs to the slaughter they may not be but Monaghan go into today’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin in full knowledge of the disembowelment the reigning champions have handed out to all who have gone before this year.

By Peter O’Dwyer

ULSTER SFC FINAL:

Dick Clerkin is leaning back against the front wall of Monaghan’s impressive training base at Cloghan, just outside Castleblayney.

Monaghan have gone with the same 15 that beat Armagh in their semi-final replay for Sunday’s Ulster final showdown against Donegal in Clones.

ULSTER SFC FINAL: