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.

I was very pleased with the outcome of the GAA Special Congress in the splendid facilities at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The Oxford Dictionary defines juggernaut as ‘a huge, powerful, and overwhelming force’ and by way of explanation uses ‘the juggernaut thundered through the countryside’ as a descriptor.

Caolan Ward last Sunday week answered the call from Declan Bonner to step into the Donegal team for his first championship appearance at Croke Park when Eoghan Ban Gallagher and Neil McGee’s absences through injury were confirmed prior to the epic 1-20 to 1-20 draw with Kerry.

Patience, we’re often told, is a virtue.

They’re an odd couple, no doubt about that, but Diarmuid Connolly and Bernard Brogan have been tangled together in blue for a dozen years now.

The tree overlooking Fitzgerald Stadium has since been cut down but anyone — from Donegal or elsewhere — hoping to get a glimpse of Kerry this week might simply stroll into the famous Killarney ground.

We’ll skip with the preamble. Any assessment of where the Cork hurlers go from here has to start with where John Meyler goes from here.

Tomorrow, Central Council will choose which form of the old Tommy Murphy Cup they back as a motion to Special Congress later this year on a revamped football championship.

Ryan McHugh doesn’t remember much about his father Martin leading Cavan to an Ulster title, but he says his family will always have a special bond with the county.

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.

As you get older, you start to realise there will always be people who are more concerned with pulling you down rather than raising you up.

Charlotte play in the United Soccer League (USL) Championship where they have won just one out of 14 games so far this season - a record which has led to the Donegal man being sacked.

Hugh McFadden believes the rivalry that has dictated the tone of Ulster football for the last decade is currently being dictated by Tyrone.

One of Jim McGuinness’s first tasks when he finally landed the role of Donegal senior manager heading into the Baltic winter of 2010 was to cobble together a backroom team.

Over the coming weekends, luxury buses with complimentary wifi and mobile phone chargers will roll into county grounds all over Ireland.

Donegal waltzed back to the top flight of the Allianz League with a comprehensive 13-point win over a listless Kildare at Fr Tierney Park in Ballyshannon yesterday.

Reid is currently undertaking his UEFA Pro Licence alongside the likes of Robbie Keane, Damien Duff, Keith Andrews, and Jim McGuinness.

Here's your lunchtime bulletin.

Martin McElhinney says the current Donegal squad is the best he’s been involved in.

The new manager of the Charlotte Independence can no more be blamed for the worst excesses of defensive play in football than David Bowie can be blamed for the Bay City Rollers, writes Tommy Martin

Jim McGuinness, the last manager to take down Dublin in the Championship, reckons it will take “something exceptional” to prevent the All-Ireland title-holders from completing the five in a row.

We have been here before in this country, says Larry Ryan.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference — since Malcolm Gladwell’s seminal book was published in 2000, we have watched for and puzzled over those pivotal moments. Mysterious thresholds when products or messages or behaviours ‘go viral’. When ideas catch on.

Jim McGuinness will not be the next Mayo football manager, with the 2012 All-Ireland winning Donegal boss ruling himself out of the running to succeed Stephen Rochford.

As his name continues to be linked with the Mayo senior manager’s position, Westport have been given no indication that James Horan won’t be remaining on in charge of their senior team.

Stephen Rochford’s acrimonious departure from Mayo has been handled similarly to the last heave against the management team three years ago: Badly.

Well, I have to say that the Tyrone-Monaghan match was one of the poorest All-Ireland semi-finals I’ve seen in a long, long time, writes Oisin McConville.

Regardless of how the CCCC occasionally surprises us, with Ballybofey or Omagh unlikely to host an All-Ireland semi-final in this or any foreseeable lifetime, this is a big as it gets — or will ever get — in the north-west.

It was quite something to see Michael Murphy at the Irish Open Pro-Am in Ballyliffin, laughing and enjoying the company of the country’s top golfers and a few thousand avid GAA supporters ten days out from what is effectively an All-Ireland quarter-final. It wouldn’t have happened on Jim McGuinness’ watch, I can tell you that.

Former All-Ireland-winning manager Jim McGuinness is a surprise contender to take charge at Galway United.

Dublin’s Philly McMahon has rejected Jim McGuinness’s claim that the Super 8s venue dilemma could tarnish the All-Ireland holders’ “legacy” and standing in the game.

Former Donegal boss Jim McGuinness has urged Dublin to “do the right thing” and to insist on playing just one of their upcoming Super 8 games at Croke Park.

Former Donegal boss Jim McGuinness has urged Dublin to “do the right thing” and to insist on playing just one of their upcoming Super 8 games at Croke Park.

Twenty years after being denied an Ulster championship when Derry’s Joe Brolly snatched an injury time winning goal, yesterday Declan Bonner finally got his hands on the Anglo-Celt Cup.

Although some of the fizz has been taken out of the provincial championships since the introduction of the qualifiers back in 2001, there’s a semblance of a climactic feel to Donegal’s preliminary round opener against Cavan in Ballybofey tomorrow.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This is the football championship. Thirty-two counties chase a ball around for four months and at the end, the Dubs always win.

‘Throughout the spring, June 13 had hibernated in my head… In the dressing room just before going out I spoke to the players in a group. That was something I never did. This game was different. I spoke from my heart about who we were and what we were about and what we were going to do when we went out the door, what we had to do.’ — Paul Galvin, In My Own Words: The Autobiography

For many counties, the notion of this being a month for club championship action has looked more and more like an extended April fool’s joke, writes Mike Quirke.

Club footballers in Donegal will be starved of championship fare until September, following a county board decision on Monday evening.

Gaelic football, and sport in general, can be all consuming for those of us at the coalface. Whether you are a player, coach, supporter or anything in between, we allow everything from training to games, and from stats to systems dominate our priorities all too often.

Listen to Mike Quirke and John Fogarty review the GAA weekend with Colm O’Connor.