GAA has adopted winning ways to become a major national asset

I WAS born into a rugby family and reared on the exploits of Jack Kyle and others. The memory of watching Mike Gibson play his first game for Ireland is still implanted on my brain, though it was more than 40 years ago.

His selection led to controversy in our house because my father was a great fan of the man he replaced (I think his name was Mick Quinn, regarded as a great and reliable kicker of the ball).

Indeed my dad’s judgement seemed to be vindicated when Gibson dropped his very first pass. “There you are, now”, I remember dad saying, “didn’t I tell you no good would come of this sort of experimentation?”