Stars accept second billing to the athletes

REMARKABLY there was still soap left in the men’s toilets for an almighty scrubbing up job had been done on Colin Farrell’s tongue.

Breaths were held all over Croke Park when the heart-throb hell-raiser with the habit of turning the air forty shades of blue bounced into view like a housebound collie getting his first walk in days.

But though he shot about the stage as if chasing imaginary cars, he didn’t bark, he didn’t bite and there wasn’t an expletive to be heard.