Far away from the madding crowds of the Six Nations last weekend, Tom Clifford Park, the famed home of Young Munster, hosted my own club Cork Constitution in the latest of a series of hotly contested Ulster Bank League Munster derbies.

THERE was a reluctant acceptance among many public service workers picketing in Cork that their income is going to drop again after the budget – but they remain adamant in their desire to see the pain shared by those in the high-income brackets.