Midway through the first half of Sunday’s All-Ireland final, I felt a tight, heaving sensation in the pit of my stomach.

The stormy weather which may have swept one Dutch holidaymaker to his death and resulted in another man going missing has hampered search efforts, with galeforce winds expected to batter the West Cork coast today.

Michael Lyster, the Jarvis Cocker of RTÉ, likes nothing better than getting down with the common people, it seems.

Defeat by Cork yesterday signals the end of an era for Kilkenny

It’s arguably the most iconic goal in Gaelic football history, certainly Meath’s, but Colm O’Rourke insists Kevin Foley would never have scored his four-in-a-row goal of 1991 in the modern game.

At the end of Kerry’s ‘Golden Years’ era in 1986, the next four All-Ireland football championships were shared by Meath and Cork — the significance being that the Royals had been as good as wiped out in Leinster over the preceding 15 years, while the Rebels managed to escape the clutches of Kerry just once in 12 Munster final meetings.

Meath chairman Barney Allen has refused to confirm that Seamus McEnaney will be in charge for the county’s Leinster SFC first round game against Wicklow on May 27.

NOT a classic in Navan by any means yet a replay that won’t easily be forgotten, 120 energy sapping minutes failing to separate the teams.

SEAMUS McENANEY’S appointment as Meath manager last winter may have stirred up a hornet’s nest at the time — and continues to do so — but ‘outside’ influences haven’t been confined to the man charged with guiding the senior footballers.

BACK in 1992, when they won the All-Ireland for the first time, the composition of the Donegal team was such that it rewarded players nearing the end of their careers and held out the promise of further glory for those starting out on theirs.

MEATH county board chairman Barney Allen gave a strong endorsement to manager Seamus McEnaney despite the looming possibility of relegation to Allianz FL Division 3.

He saw off Kerry’s Tom Spillane and Meath hard man Mick Lyons in the space of a few mad weeks almost 20 years ago. So what ever became of Down powerhouse and All-Ireland winner Peter Withnell? Brendan O’Brien tracked him down

CONOR DEEGAN doesn’t remember the exact year. It might have been 1989 or maybe the season after. Whenever, it was a game played in the Marshes and he recalls it as the catalyst for Down’s All-Ireland successes in the 1990s.

THERE’s this red line raiding against the Donegal rearguard and it’s late on and the game in the balance.

YOU find your roving reporter today still roving, but a touch stiffly. After years immersed in the beautiful game as a fan, reporter and really bad player, I have finally sustained a proper football injury, and at the 2008 European Championships to boot.

WE had a globe of the world at home when I was a child. What was striking about it was that only two places were identified in Ireland. One was Dublin and the other was Shannon.

WE have been down this road before — many times in fact, since the beginning of the experiment in 1984.

THE Munster Senior football League kicked back into action this weekend with the pick of the eight contests being the meeting of Clonakilty and Kerins O’Rahilly’s in Tralee in Division One.

MATT CONNOR never imagined he would be amongst the Irish hoards in Melbourne this week, sampling the delights of the International Rules Series, the Rugby World Cup and the Melbourne Cup.

MATT CONNOR never imagined