“You just can’t beat games.”

Russell Rovers prevailed after hitting a purple patch in extra-time in Kilmallock on Sunday to take their place in the All-Ireland junior hurling club championship final against Kilkenny’s Conahy Shamrocks on Saturday week in Croke Park.

In annexing Cork and Munster championship victories, they have already shown battling qualities. The hope now, is to continue that march into the All-Ireland series.

Stephen Cluxton has been named Footballer of the Year for the first time in his career.

Independent News and Media is closing its printing plant in west Dublin, according to Siptu.

Tuam Stars manager Tommy Carton is confident his side have shown that All-Ireland champions Corofin are beatable after they needed Gary Sice’s late heroics to force a replay of the Galway SFC final in a cracking game at Tuam Stadium.

Sexual politics, snideput-downs and family rivalries are fuelling the trouble brewing in a small Midlands town.

Holders Kilmacud Crokes kept alive their ambitions of back-to-back Dublin SFC titles when accounting for 14-man Clontarf by 0-16 to 0-8 in their quarter-final at Parnell Park yesterday.

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.

After failing to score for Dublin in the drawn All-Ireland final, Ciarán Kilkenny required less than 90 seconds to get his first point of the replay.

The least Dublin’s history makers have earned was choosing how their greatness would be validated. Doing it in the face of a piercing probe from the winningest football county – and the one snapping at your heels - is some way to frank it.

Stephen Cluxton (Parnells): If this is his final bow, what better way to do it? Kerry didn’t make his life too difficult as he restarted but he was still varying his kick-outs well. His save from Stephen O’Brien was an easy one but he was so good with the high ball that came his way. 7

The three points which Paul Mannion and Con O’Callaghan supplied on September 1 compared rather poorly to the impressive totals the pair had run up en route to the decider.

How are the finalists’ All-Stars stock after the drawn All-Ireland final? Honest broker John Fogarty tests the market.

If you were lucky enough to get a seat in Croke Park yesterday then you certainly can’t quibble about value for money.

The Kerry forward line can do serious damage but you’d have to worry about the supply of ball they are going to receive, which makes this All-Ireland final a bridge too far for them.

Talk of Dublin’s drive of five, or Kerry somehow bringing a halt to it will grow inescapably deafening in the next few days.

Tony Leen A

If you weren’t glorifying, you were gulping.

A blitz of 2-6 in 11 early second half minutes inspired by Con O’Callaghan and Paul Mannion sent Dublin into a fifth straight All-Ireland final.

Well, did we ever suspect otherwise?

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.

We all know the biggest bugbear about GAA officiating is inconsistency and there was a classic case of it in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday. For the same infringement, Anthony Nolan made three different calls.

Dublin breezed into a ninth Leinster SFC final as Cormac Costello yet again dazzled with nine points.

It was the first time that the Cats were beaten in the Championship on home soil since 1949.

The Dublin footballers have been given a boost ahead of their Leinster SFC semi-final against Kildare on Sunday.

Dublin manager Jim Gavin has hinted Paul Mannion’s red card this evening will be challenged.

Fourteen-man Dublin extended their winning run to 25 games in the Leinster senior football championship with this facile victory in O’Moore Park.

Martin Kavanagh fired 11 points for Carlow, but he was unable to get them over the line for victory as Galway claimed the win in their Leinster SHC opener at Pearse Stadium.

An ‘animal lover’ today escaped criminal sanction after admitting harassing a man he suspected of cruelty to a horse.

Defending champions Kilmacud Crokes began their Dublin SFC campaign on a positive note when defeating Ballymun Kickhams by 2-13 to 0-14 at Parnell Park on Saturday night.

Galway advanced to the semi-finals of the Allianz League thanks to an impressive display in the second-half when they were playing against the wind at Pearse Stadium.

Jim Gavin won’t be put out by the way it ended in Tralee last Saturday night, will he?

Another Kerry-Dublin classic in Tralee ended in a welter of excitement and a third successive Allianz League Division 1 victory for the Kingdom

Saturday, in case you didn’t realise, was Groundhog Day in the US, the 133rd installment of a rodent climbing out of a burrow to predict the weather.

Galway split their squad at the weekend, with half of them playing Ballygunner in a challenge match in Claregalway and the remainder brushing Laois aside in their opening game in Division 1B yesterday at Pearse Stadium.

A few moments before Patrick Fox spoke to TG4 after Sunday’s AIB Leinster club final win, he learned who Mullinalaghta would be playing next.

It's the first time a Longford club has competed in and won the provincial title.

Having previously not conceded a goal in championship football since April, Kilmacud Crokes leaked three at Parnell Park and came mightily closed to being dumped out of the AIB Leinster club SFC.

GAA history was made at Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday evening, when Russell Rovers celebrated a first adult county championship success.

Galway’s footballing purists lamented the state of the game after this replayed county final at Pearse Stadium, but with their 20th title secured Corofin couldn’t care less about entertainment value.

Kerry champions Lixnaw have been dealt a major blow ahead of their Munster Intermediate club hurling semi-final with Cork champions Charleville with news that talisman John ‘Tweek’ Griffin will miss the game with a broken hand.

St Jude’s manager Padraic Monaghan pinpointed a powerful second-quarter showing as a crucial factor in his side’s stunning success over St Vincent’s in the Dublin SFC at Parnell Park yesterday.

Reigning Galway SHC champions Liam Mellows will face Tynagh-Abbey/Duniry in the quarter-finals this year.