UCC manager Tom Kingston described Mark Coleman’s winning sideline cut as ‘incredible’ after the reigning champions booked their place in the Fitzgibbon Cup final.

Champions UCC left it late but Mark Coleman fired the winning point from a 65th minute sideline cut to set up a Fitzgibbon Cup final with IT Carlow on Wednesday next and deny hosts DCU.

A long day’s journey into night on Saturday, with Cork and Tipperary serving up an entertaining tussle that felt for a while as though it might never end.

Few counties have as many players involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup as Cork and the tight turnaround this week is a fair test of those involved and a clear indication of what exactly fixture congestion means to those most affected by it, writes Michael Moynihan.

Our writers pick out eight talking points from the opening weekend of Allianz League action.

Cork couldn’t have dreamed of a better start, breaching Stephen O’Keeffe’s goal-line twice in the opening three minutes.

Former All-Ireland winning Cork captain Mark Landers wants the Rebels to take the Allianz Hurling League seriously but also accepts it’s the perfect opportunity to blood players who have flown under the radar.

The Everyman hosts Ronan FitzGibbon’s play about singsongs along the Blackwater, writes Marjorie Brennan

Heard about the 29-year-old Mayo footballer who went back to college to study medicine and hurl Fitzgibbon? And is now closing on bringing a first-ever All Ireland hurling club title to Mayo? While winning Sam was once his obsession, hurling has always been Cathal Freeman’s passion

“Sean O’Donoghue came in centre field and Bill Cooper played centre-back, we’re just trying fellas out to see how they go — this is the time of the year to do it.”

Digital teamsheets and referee reports will form part of the GAA’s information technology transformation in 2020.

Darragh Fitzgibbon has acknowledged that while there’s no question about the talent of the Cork hurlers, their “work-rate and attitude” has been a problem at key times.

Clare star John Conlon says the panel has been energised by the arrival of new manager Brian Lohan, though he feels the outgoing management team of Gerry O’Connor and Donal Moloney were “disrespected”.

For long stages in this compelling Cork SHC third round in Mallow on Saturday, it looked like championship newcomers Charleville might prevail.

Charleville proved too strong for 14-man Mallow in the RedFM Division 2 HL final in Buttevant today.

Next year’s junior cycle well-being course will include a unit of learning titled ‘Is Everybody Going Well’.

A cakewalk for Cork in Mullingar as they eased themselves into an All-Ireland quarter-final against Kilkenny in Croke Park in seven days’ time.

The furnishings in Pairc Ui Rinn won’t rival Madrid’s Wanda Metropolitano for comfort anytime soon, but no-one was forced to the edge of their seats Saturday night in Cork as the hosts romped to a 21-point Munster SFC semi final victory over Limerick.

Lehane limped off injured against Limerick last Sunday week while Spillane’s back issue has kept him out of action in Cork’s first two championship games.

THE KIERAN SHANNON INTERVIEW: An hour after Declan Hannon lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup last August, Éamonn Cregan phoned another Adare man whose leadership wasn’t so visible. ‘Congratulations. That’s what you started.’ Shane Fitzgibbon may have been a frustrated if well-heralded player, but that would inform him in becoming a brilliant, if unsung coach

My first championship match as Clare manager in 2004 was my ultimate nightmare. We went into the match as hot favourites but Waterford annihilated us.

In the BBC hit comedy Dad’s Army the butcher Corporal Jones always carried a bayonet. When asked why, his answer was ‘They don’t like it up ‘em’.

“I think more is made out of that than there needs to be,” says Jason Forde. Such is life with the Tipperary hurlers.

A pair of winning points of real quality from Darragh Fitzgibbon, at the end of the second period of extra-time, finally put daylight between these two teams after a pulsating and fiercely contested Cork SHC first round at Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday.

A UCC or a Kerry double, that is the question as Shane Conway and Seán O’Shea have been honoured as the best Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon and Sigerson Cup players.

UCC will be ready to apply for planning permission for their new sporting facilities in the autumn as the college looks to build on the incredible success achieved on the field over the last year.

Limerick manager John Kiely finally got to see Aaron Gillane’s instinctive Allianz Hurling League final goal last Sunday evening.

Wicklow face Derry in the Allianz Division 2B League final tomorrow afternoon, a game you may associate with simmering dissatisfaction about its location (Inniskeen, which is not Croke Park).

Kerry hurler Mikey Boyle’s young son, Bobby, wanted a Galway gearbag for Christmas as Joe Canning is one of his favourite players.

Two of the key men in UCC’s recent GAA successes enjoyed contrasting fortunes last weekend.

No county has taken as much satisfaction from the All-Ireland club hurling scene as Galway.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, but what happens when the going is as soft as in Páirc Uí Chaoimh?

Andrew Cagney’s goal entering the final quarter of the game was the crucial score as Charleville edged out Graigue-Ballycallan in this All-Ireland intermediate club hurling semi-final in Thurles.

Cork will meet Clare in the McGrath Cup final this Saturday after comfortably dismissing Limerick in today’s penultimate round clash at a venue which had neither a stand nor a scoreboard.

To label this Charleville’s finest hour would be incorrect, would be misleading. Far more accurate is it to catalogue their second-half performance as the most outstanding 33 minutes of hurling ever produced by a Charleville team.

Cork champions Charleville had too much pace and firepower for a depleted Lixnaw side in Saturday’s AIB Munster Club IHC semi-final.

Turlough O’Brien may have been a tad hyperbolic when he claimed the proposed rule changes to football are reflective of a 1940s mindset yearning for the days when players donned flat caps, but certainly the suggested place for such experimentation smacks of a mentality that’s anachronistic.

First off, Tipperary won’t be as deficient as they were in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Similarly, Cork’s collective output won’t be at the same untouchable level that it was at on July 4. What you’ll find materialising will be somewhere in the middle.

Two items stood out from John Meyler’s debrief.

There was a delay in Cork’s return to proceedings after half-time yesterday. They had gone in four points behind, but it could have been more. Cork used the time well at the break and were a different outfit in the second period.

Accepted wisdom has it that youngsters tend to play with freedom when they make the climb up to the top tier and that their progress is usually tempered as the altitude of their surroundings and the stakes involved finally dawn.

A few of the older patrons in the South Stand in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last night may remember the old Buddy Starcher classic ‘History Repeats Itself’. And, had they also been in Thurles last Sunday, the song must surely have resonated with them as this Munster U21 hurling semi-final unfolded.

Cork lived up to their favourites’ billing to reach the Bord Gáis Energy Munster U21HC final with a win over Waterford at Páirc Uí Chaoimh last night, but they were pushed all the way.

2017 footballer of the year Andy Moran added two goals as a sub.