It didn’t garner any headlines but Jim Gavin also hit the centenary mark in this year’s Leinster championship.

Paul Keane in preview box Andy McEntee is a manager on the up, on the verge of elevating Meath to a first Leinster final in five years, having already masterminded a return to Division 1 in the Allianz league.

Eleven years ago, Bryan Cullen was an employee of Ulster Bank. It was merely a means to an end. Having graduated three years previously with a sports science and health degree, the job made little sense but for the fact he was playing inter-county football and the bank were associate sponsors of the All-Ireland SFC.

A documentary comparing the current cardiac scoring of the Down and Meath panels that faced off in the 1991 All-Ireland final has saved a number of lives.

Mickey Burke, Meath’s longest serving player, has admitted securing a belated return to Division 1 of the Allianz League was his big target for the year.

One of the tactical moves of the year?

Meath footballer Cillian O’Sullivan has welcomed the green light to redevelop their Páirc Tailteann GAA base, describing it as “long overdue”.

Dillon remained underrated both inside and outside his own county, right up until he announced his retirement yesterday morning, writes Kieran Shannon

Such supremacy is as a measure of the GAA’s negligence as it is of Dublin’s exemplary management, from John Costello to Jim Gavin, writes Kieran Shannon.

Pat Flanagan has revealed that it was his wife who informed him that he had been axed as Offaly senior football team manager on Tuesday evening.

Former Louth manager Paddy Carr believes referee Brendan Gorman “lost control of everything towards the end” of the county’s remarkable qualifier defeat to Meath in 2002.

To have an airport called after you demands a wider international celebrity most Irish sportspeople simply do not have, writes Paul Rouse.

Recently-retired Kilkenny star Jackie Tyrrell has delivered a stinging broadside against Ger Loughnane for his recent comments about Brian Cody.

The GAA’s standing playing rules committee meets in Croke Park this evening where the black card is certain to be discussed.

Five All-Ireland finals that went to replays have produced lessons that can be applied today...

When Down hammered an ailing Kerry side in the 1991 All-Ireland semi-final, team manager Pete McGrath was greeted by a breathless and beaming county administrator Dan McCartan.

At the end of last month, GAA president Aogán Ó Fearghail was asked if he was worried about the standard of games in the football championship this summer.

BROADCASTER Hector Ó hEochagáin is on the move again to celebrate TG4’s 20th anniversary.

Strapping Meath defender Mickey Burke reckons he was “made out to be the baddie”’ after the biting saga that followed the Royals’ last clash with Dublin.

Last year, the GAA’s disciplinary system was again the source of controversy. 

Tune in to The Late Late Show this Friday at 9.35pm on RTÉ One.

A Co Cavan estate agent sold a Dublin woman’s holiday apartment in Turkey before “falsely and dishonestly misleading her and misappropriating” the €42,000 proceeds in a personal AIB bank account, a judge was told yesterday.

After seeing through the mark last Saturday, playing rules committee chairman Jarlath Burns was quizzed about the possibility of introducing a trial to Gaelic football limiting the number of consecutive hand-passes.

DCU 6-14 Athlone IT 1-7: Monaghan’s Shane Carey fired a brilliant 3-6 as holders Dublin City University made a strong statement of their intention to capture back-to-back Sigerson Cup titles for the first time.

Rarely does a day pass in this country without a wonderfully evocative image appearing in the national papers from some sporting event or other and yesterday’s shot in these pages of Patrick Cronin striking the sliotar amidst the floodlights and flurries of snow during Cork and Waterford’s pre-season meeting in Mallow certainly ticked that particularly box.

Playing rules committee member Seán Boylan wants cynical play punished in real time on the field of play.

Diving will not be upgraded to a black or red card this year, as the GAA’s playing rules committee requires more time to study the area.

Meath’s four-time All-Ireland-winning manager Seán Boylan says the rules of Gaelic football need to be simplified and changed to stop rewarding foul play.

 

It’s become a feature of both Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s and Jim Gavin’s reigns that they tend not to select Under 21 players for big matches. It begs the question, why not?

Meath clubs have rowed in behind football boss Mick O’Dowd and reappointed him for a further two-years.

Now that the unthinkable has happened and Meath have lost to Westmeath, is it time to revisit Martin McHugh’s much ridiculed explanation for the decline of Gaelic football in the county?

David Cameron is preparing for another term as the UK's Prime Minister, the Limerick woman who along with her young daughter died in a road crash in Poland on Wednesday, had just moved into a new family home in Norway and Memphis Depay has vowed to help bring the glory days back to Old Trafford. These are some of the latest and most read news stories on irishexaminer.com this morning.

Sean Boylan knows a thing or two about bringing Dublin down, and while the legendary Meath manager sees no obvious stumbling block to prevent the Dubs running amok in Leinster again this year, he sees problems ahead for Jim Gavin’s side.

Finally one of the GAA’s core issues — teenage player burnout — is getting a proper airing. Is the organisation ready to address a problem that’s literally eating away its future? Writes Eoghan Cormican.

Meath 1-14 DCU 1-14: Meath will have key attackers Stephen Bray and Mickey Newman available for their O’Byrne Cup clash with Dublin.

COMEDIAN Oliver Callan doesn’t lose sleep about the Irish public figures and celebrities he skewers on his weekly satirical RTÉ radio show, Callan’s Kicks.

Sean Boylan junior was often seen standing beside his father when the legendary Meath manager would run on the pitch at the end of games, but the youngster still chose a career far away from football.