Mickey Harte has always sweated the small stuff.

Margin of error is something a lot of observers don’t consider when analysing a referee’s performance. Refs don’t go out with a plan to make mistakes but neither do they believe they are going to get everything 100% correct.

When Cork exited the championship in early July, Leesiders’ football interest moved from supporting our own to the ABK camp.

As has been their habit since the innocent summer of 2011, the Mayo football team hasn’t been short of takers lining up to bury and praise them in recent days.

AT the halfway point of the decade, I selected the players who were best positioned to make any all-decade side.

Such supremacy is as a measure of the GAA’s negligence as it is of Dublin’s exemplary management, from John Costello to Jim Gavin, writes Kieran Shannon.

Five late, unanswered points salvaged an unlikely draw for Dublin at HQ against Tyrone this evening and extended to 31 the number of games the reigning league and All-Ireland champions have gone unbeaten.

When Rory Gallagher began kicking ball on the Navan Rd back in 2002 he got an insight as to what football was like in the capital.

The Leinster Council’s decision to choose Nowlan Park as the venue for Dublin’s opening defence of their provincial title may have come from left-field, but the Kilkenny ground will not be virgin territory for all of Jim Gavin’s footballers.

Transplant the final Division 1 table to this time next year when semi-finals will be a thing of the past and there would be no equivocation — for the first time in 30 years, Dublin and Kerry would contest a Division 1 final.

Mayo 0-7 Dublin 0-9: After just two rounds of league football, Mayo already look to have a huge fight on their hands to retain their top-flight status.

We await the exact reasoning behind the Disputes Resolution Authority’s decision to rescind Diarmuid Connolly’s red card but it can safely be said the GAA’s appeals structure is undermining the authority of referees on and off the field.

Diarmuid Connolly is set to be named in the Dublin team to face Mayo tomorrow in the hope he will be allowed to play.

Mayo 0-10 Dublin 2-18: Just two weeks after they tanked Monaghan by 13 points in Castlebar, Mayo suffered the heaviest Division 1 defeat thus far when Dublin disposed of them in business-like fashion at the same venue.

They may have lost their All-Ireland crown in 2014 but Dublin still dominate our team of the last five years.

There goes another one, a forward that used to light it up but has now conceded that the game itself more than father time has dulled and worn him down.

Dublin senior footballer Jonny Cooper is out of hospital after he was stabbed early this morning.

Dublin senior footballer Jonny Cooper is recovering after being injured in a knife attack in the city in the early hours of this morning.

The State is obliged to check that a minimum educational standard is being applied...writes Michael Clifford

Limerick hurling captain Donal O’Grady returns at centre-forward for Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final meeting with Kilkenny.

The nagging fear that Kerry are hatching a plan is always there.

The nagging fear that Kerry are hatching a plan is always there.

There is something special about being the best, and the weight of expectation that accompanies it.

Bernard Brogan admits that finding roles for the latest stream of up-and-coming Dublin footballers will be one of Jim Gavin’s biggest challenges.

ALLIANZ FL DIV 1:

Dublin dismantled Kildare’s creaking defence on their way to a resounding NFL Division One victory at Croke Park.

I was at a function recently with a few people and we bumped into Anthony Tohill, the four-time All Star and All-Ireland medallist. Tohill stands 6ft 4ins tall.

Dublin 2-15 Meath 0-14

RTÉ pundit Colm O’Rourke used to say that the All-Ireland title is won by the team with the best players.

Donegal 1-10 Dublin 0-13

Dublin 1-15 Down 0-9

Kildare 2-7 Dublin 2-20

Johnny Cooper wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last Dublin footballer to sprout in spring only to slump come summer.

“An outstanding football player, an outstanding athlete and an exemplary individual. He sets the highest standards for himself and those around him. That’s what I’m looking for in a captain and he ticks all those boxes.”

Dublin 1-18 Cork 2-9

Kevin O'Brien, Jack McCaffrey and Paddy Quinn will make their first Allianz Football League starts for Dublin against Cork at Croke Park tomorrow (throw-in 7pm).

Dublin manager Pat Gilroy has unsurprisingly named an unchanged team for Sunday's Leinster SFC semi-final against Wexford at Croke Park (throw-in 4pm).

The Dublin senior footballers are injury free ahead of their Leinster SFC semi-final against Wexford at Croke Park next Sunday.