The GAA has allayed fears that the Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch won’t be up to scratch for the Munster SHC games in May and insisted it could yet host a number of Allianz League games.

A year before the IMF, ECB, and European Commission landed in Dublin, the GAA’s own equivalent of a troika was ready to bail out a besieged Cork County Board and its long-time secretary Frank Murphy, writes Kieran Shannon.

The fallacy about sport is that it belongs to the young. This is not quite true, though the young often feel that they invented their particular pastime, or that it exists for their enjoyment alone.

The Mayor of County Cork has offered to act as an honest broker to ensure the GAA holds the Liam Miller memorial fundraiser in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The GAA has refused to bow to public pressure and last night insisted it would not back down on its decision to block the hosting of a charity match in aid of the family of the late Liam Miller at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

CORK 1-25 LIMERICK 0-28: The capacity of hurling to enthral knows no bounds as this wonder of a game demonstrated on Saturday evening.

If you’re reading this column there’s a good chance you’re a member of a sports club. If so, you may be familiar with a phenomenon best encapsulated by the experience of a man I know in a government organisation.

As part of his preparation for religious life, Fr Pat Barry had to serve as a deacon in a parish: six months’ worth of pastoral experience ahead of his ordination, back in 1976. He was assigned to a parish on Canvey Island in Essex.

Coming so quickly as it does on the heels of the announcement of the €45m quayside office block project at Albert Quay, yesterday’s long-awaited An Bord Pleanála approval for the €70m rejuvenation of Páirc Uí Chaoimh adds to the growing sense of optimism around Cork City’s future, especially along the riverside from City Hall to Blackrock.

Colm O’Neill last night claimed referee Cormac Reilly told him there was "a minute or so" remaining of injury-time just before he converted a 73rd minute free, which turned out to be the second last kick of the game.

Call it semantics but the finishing line hasn’t moved for them.

Limerick chairman Oliver Mann has slammed the Munster Council’s decision to stage the provincial hurling decider at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on July 13.

Plans for a massive public park in Cork City, which will wrap around the Páirc Uí Chaoimh, are skewed in favour of the GAA, residents have claimed.

FUN times with Conor Counihan.

WHAT a difference two weeks makes. A couple of Sundays ago, in the semi-final, the Tipperary champions put their bodies on the line, gave everything possible to get the win over Kilmallock, in Kilmallock.

IT BEGAN inauspiciously, a delayed start due to events elsewhere, then a two-point advantage conceded to Tipperary in the opening eight minutes – it could even have been more but for a save by Donal Óg Cusack from Lar Corbett that went out for a 65, converted by Eoin Kelly.

THE Milner household in Ballinacarriga is quiet. Situated idyllically, there is a clichéd yet reassuring serenity in the Girlough townland. But Michael Milner is doing his best to disrupt all that.

The List of Shame of poorly managed venues, currently headed by Páirc Uí Chaoimh, has been joined by not one, but two Cusack Parks – the one in Ennis and the other one in Mullingar – plus Wexford Park. Once again, fans are angry about badly organised stewarding, crazy starting times and ticketing arrangements. What a way to honour Cusack’s name in the 125th year of the Association he helped to found?

CORK goalkeeper Alan Quirke apologised to referee Maurice Deegan at half-time of Sunday’s Munster SFC semi-final in the wake of a controversial penalty decision against the Rebels.

THE beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

THESE are busy times for hotelier Conor Fitzgerald, the last few weeks in the run-up to Christmas, office parties by the dozen to be arranged in the two Fitzgerald family hotels, one in his native Adare – the Woodlands – the other in Cork, the Vienna Woods Hotel in Glanmire.

ROUND TWO, nineteen years on. Dr Crokes of Killarney don’t have happy memories of their last visit to Cork for a Munster club championship game.

MAURICE Fitzgerald won his first county senior championship medal yesterday.