Tongue firmly lodged in cheek, Tipperary’s Robbie Kiely tweeted in the closing stages of Sunday’s All-Ireland final: “Any black cards in this match yet?”

Clare only led once in this qualifier, but they hit the front when it mattered most, landing a winner as the game slipped into stoppage time to crown a great weekend for the Banner County.

Fermanagh 1-17 Laois 0-10: Fermanagh boosted their prospects of staying in Division 2, with Tomás Corrigan scoring a brilliant match-winning haul of 1-11 to push Laois further into relegation danger.

Meanwhile substitute Cian O’Brien was the hero for Meath as his late equaliser rescued a draw.

TODAY

Derry 3-13 Fermanagh 1-10: Derry boss Damian Barton admitted his side had suffered a McKenna Cup ‘hangover’ in the first half of Sunday’s nine-point Division 2 victory over Fermanagh at Celtic Park.

GAA president Aogán Ó Fearghail is open to the idea of the punishment for diving being upgraded from a yellow to a black or red card.

At the behest of a reader and a Kilkenny friend of ours, we took another look at Barry Kelly’s decision to overturn a Tipperary 65 last Sunday week. 

And the prize for most predictable GAA headline of the year goes to “Tiernan McCann avoids eight-week ban”.

Next year’s Congress is likely to vote on a motion upgrading a dive from a yellow card to a black or red card offence in the wake of the Tiernan McCann case.

Joe Brolly insists the GAA “do not have a leg to stand on” after “unlawfully” proposing Tiernan McCann be slapped with an eight-week ban for feigning injury during Tyrone’s football qualifier win over Monaghan.

In February of last year, Kerry were chasing a late equalising point against Dublin in their opening Division 1 game in Croke Park when Aidan O’Mahony fell to the ground in the hope of persuading David Coldrick to award him a free.

Monaghan’s Darren Hughes believes that nobody walked away from last weekend’s red card flashpoint at Croke Park with their reputation enhanced.

We’ll come to the football shortly but first yesterday’s All-Ireland hurling semi-final where Brian Gavin did well but should have awarded more frees.

A penny for Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s thoughts right now as he spies Tyrone’s red and white army marching across the horizon again.

James Owens improved his chances of refereeing his first senior All-Ireland hurling final with an impressive handling of the Galway-Cork All-Ireland quarter-final yesterday.

Members of the Cork County Board executive “made representations” to GAA top-brass earlier this summer to synchronise fixtures involving the county’s hurling and football teams.

Galway 0-10 Laois 2-10

Mickey Harte wasn’t available for interview following yesterday’s defeat in Omagh, Tyrone’s sixth in their last 11 league and championship games at Healy Park.

Donegal 1-15 Derry 0-12: Allianz Football League Division 1: When Rory Gallagher was appointed Donegal manager on Halloween night, the All-Ireland final loss to Kerry was still fresh in his players’ thoughts.

Donegal got their Division 1 campaign and Rory Gallagher's reign off to a winning start with a storming second half that swatted Derry aside at Ballybofey tonight.

GMIT 0-14 Dublin IT 1-9

Kerry manager Eamonn Fitzmaurice insists the Kingdom’s tactics for Sunday week’s All-Ireland football decider will not be influenced by the selection of match officials.

Joe McQuillan will referee Dublin’s All-Ireland senior football semi-final clash with Donegal on August 31 — the eighth time in four Championships he has taken charge of a game involving them.

Ah, August. That time of the year when referees are that bit slower to reach for the whistle and shy away from making the big calls.

I was in Croke Park yesterday and it would be stressing the obvious to say James McGrath let the game flow.

Tyrone 2-21 Louth 0-10

Armagh and Cavan are facing fines and suspensions arising from Sunday’s pre-match fracas.

ULSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL:

Before throw-in in Omagh on Sunday, April 6, Jim Gavin was asked by TG4 presenter Micheál Ó Domhnaill about Bernard Brogan, who had been named to make his first start of the year.

Tyrone 1-15 Dublin 3-10

The news that Kildare are looking into contesting the black card Michael Foley picked up in Croke Park on Saturday evening is encouraging.

Our lowdown of this weekend's GAA action

UCD 0-17 Athlone IT 2-7

Castlebar Mitchels’ talismanic midfielder Barry Moran is free to line out against Dr Crokes in the All-Ireland Club SFC semi-final after winning his appeal for a red card suspension from the Connacht final.

There was lots of spectacular action in an absorbing game in Hyde Park yesterday, before Castlebar Mitchels managed by the experienced Pat Holmes, saw off St. Brigids, and denied the Roscommon men a four-in-a-row.

St Brigid’s goalkeeper Shane Curran blasted referee Marty Duffy for his performance in Hyde Park yesterday.

St Brigid’s 2-12 Castlebar Mitchel's 3-13 (aet)

Have managers lost the essence of their role? One of the great misjudgements of modern management is that everything that matters must be measured and that if something cannot be measured, it does not matter.