Although the likes of Waterford and Wexford are cool on the idea, Cooney indicated support for Limerick’s proposal, which is set to be voted on at Annual Congress in Croke Park next month.

This week’s buzzword has been fixtures. And it will be the same in Central Council tomorrow as the 2020 fixtures calendar is confirmed and the fixtures task force provide them with a briefing.

Earlier this month, Mulcahy collected a Liberty Insurance Camogie All-Star — her first after 15 years of breaking scoring records with Limerick.

The Clare senior footballers will be without their two All-Star nominees next season as captain Gary Brennan has joined Jamie Malone in opting out of the squad.

Having twice been shortlisted for the top individual award, six-time All-Ireland winning captain Stephen Cluxton is in the shake-up to claim his first footballer of the year as one of Dublin’s 13 PwC All-Star nominations.

Dublin are on the brink of history and already have seven SFC wins to their name this summer, and John Fogarty reflects that in his August All-Stars. But how do the other counties fare?

For their week-long residency in Perth’s Duxton Hotel November two years ago, the Ireland International Rules team had their own recreational area in the lower ground floor.

Paul Keane in scoreboard Watching this epic qualifier tie unfold in Portlaoise, Clare sweating buckets and Meath literally spilling blood, we recalled how Colm Collins once described the Super 8s as a ‘cynical exercise in collecting more money’ by the GAA.

They were clinging on by their fingertips at the finish in Portlaoise but Meath are through to the Super 8s for the first time after edging an epic Round 4 qualifier.

Seamus Clancy is unequivocal. Many of the giants in Clare football history will wear the jersey in Portlaoise tomorrow.

Of all the metrics we can use to calibrate Colm Collins’ success with Clare, the county’s Championship record before and after he took over is most revealing.

Not for the first time in Clare jerseys, David Tubridy and Gary Brennan rose to the occasion with huge displays to propel their team to victory in Mullingar and to within touching distance of the Super 8s.

Clare midfielder Gary Brennan reckons a bigger degree of consistency could take them into the Super 8s.

For the fourth year in a row Clare followed their Munster Championship exit to Kerry with victory in their opening qualifier game of the summer, but the challenge for Colm Collins’ side is to to put

Clare fended off a strong Leitrim resurgence in the second-half as Colm Collins’s side worked their way into Round 3 of the qualifiers with a convincing win over Leinster at Pairc Sean Mac Diarmada.

Michael Murphy will lead Donegal into an Ulster senior football championship final for the eighth time on Sunday hoping to get his hands on the Anglo-Celt Cup for the fifth time.

On the road up to Ennis on Saturday evening, Clive Tyldesley was being interviewed on the radio about his recollections of his 1999 Champions League final commentary on ITV, and specifically about those final, frantic minutes when Manchester United went from 1-0 down in injury-time to somehow turn the tables and beat Bayern Munich 2-1.

The result was never in doubt, so why did Kerry’s victory feel like a let-down?

Clare secured safe passage to a fifth Munster semi-final meeting with Kerry in six years, but what they produced in this desperately poor provincial quarter-final fixture won’t be anywhere near sufficient to even remotely trouble Kerry.

Long-serving Clare footballer David Tubridy has described their successful relegation escape “as a huge result for the future of Clare football”.

It was rather fitting that Gary Brennan and David Tubridy should deliver the scores which rescued Clare from relegation to Division 3.

A 70th minute Keelan Sexton goal preserved Clare’s Division 2 status and, in the process, condemned both Cork and Tipperary to Division 3 football next spring.

Rory Gallagher isn’t shying away from it. Five games into a division they were favourites to be relegated from, unbeaten Fermanagh took another big step towards a fairytale promotion at Brewster Park yesterday and their manager isn’t blinking at the bright lights ahead.

Relegation favourites at the start of the campaign, unbeaten Fermanagh have taken another big step towards a fairytale promotion to the top flight with another low-scoring victory at Brewster Park.

When Cork football rolled out its 2024 vision document last month, it was generally applauded how pragmatic its proponents like Graham Canty were by acknowledging that Cork were now outside the top 10 teams in the country, in truth, a mid-table Division Two side, and a distant second in Munster.

As much as Clare have progressed and consolidated under the masterful watch of Colm Collins, they’ve developed a regrettable tendency to foil glorious chances to nail a big trophy head upon the wall.

St Flannan's are into the quarter finals of the Corn Ui Mhuiri after a comprehensive 6-12 to 1-8 victory over High School Clonmel in Cappamore.

The game was over and a damp dusk drawing in but the people walking around Walsh Park were in no hurry to leave.

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.

“A self-inflicted wound” is how Gary Brennan felt about Clare’s game management in a frantic finish at the Athletic Grounds after their four-point lead ended up in a four-point defeat.

There was always going to be a certain fascination with seeing what this young, fresh-faced Kerry side could produce in Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday, considering so many had never been on the senior championship stage before.

Kerry 0-32 Clare 0-10: New-look Kerry and new ground broken.

Clare midfielder Gary Brennan didn’t quite issue the almost obligatory apology to the travelling Banner support, but he came as near as makes no difference.

Gary Brennan is well familiar with the shoes the Limerick footballers now walk in.

CLARE 3-12 LOUTH 1-11: Clare maintained their Allianz Football League Division 2 status, with a merited win over bottom side Louth at Cusack Park Ennis yesterday.

Clare 0-14 - Cork 0-12: The snowflakes were swirling around Páirc Uí Rinn as the Clare footballers headed to the dressing rooms at the final whistle last Saturday night, but the men from the Banner weren’t feeling the chill.

Cork 0-12 Clare 0-14: Clare took the honours in this Division 2 clash on a bitterly cold night in Pairc Ui Rinn.

Clare 0-11 Tipperary 0-11: Tipperary selector, Shane Stapleton, was in hospital last night, after a collision with Clare forward, Jamie Malone. The latter received a straight red card.

The last time Clare hosted Tipperary in a football league fixture, ‘Division 4’ ran across the top of the match programme.

Clare 1-12 Cavan 2-9: A pointed free by Cavan full-forward Bryan Magee two minutes into extr- time shared the spoils on league opening day. But Clare will feel they left this Division 2 tie behind them.

Following their 12-point McGrath Cup win over Waterford in Meelick on Saturday, Clare manager Colm Collins says it would make sense to double up their January 14 tie with Cork, rather than play each other on successive weeks.

Mayo’s Aidan O’Shea has revealed his team-mate Alan Dillon played with a broken foot in the 2016 All-Ireland final games against Dublin.

Australia’s victories this past two weekends means they are now tied 10 International Series a piece with Ireland, writes John Fogarty.