So a draw then. If you’d offered that to most of the fans at Thomond Park Saturday night around the 50th minute, they’d have likely snatched it off you and sprinted off towards the Shannon Bridge.

“Don’t let the game pass you by. Don’t worry about the outcome, worry about the job at hand. What are you going to do? Thinking about winning doesn’t mean you are going to win. Don’t sit back and wait for it.”

TWO familiar faces will be missing from pews when the faithful in a stunned north Kerry parish gather for masses this weekend.

ON a sunny day when the spectre of violent death visited the tranquil farming countryside of north Kerry, signs of new life were, ironically, everywhere to be seen.