Stroke of genius

EAMONN Sweeney, in your 'Arena' supplement of January 8, shows selective myopia when he spouts the usual whinge about the Tipperary's hurling team of the 1960s.

Now I realise that Tipperary winning four All-Irelands in five years has to be explained away in some fashion the most usual resort being the 'physicality' or 'psychological edge' they employed basically anything other than the possibility that Tipp was actually the best hurling team of the time. I have no problem with that at all.

Nor indeed could I have any qualms with the term 'timber-merchantry,' as anyone from a county which has produced such noted 'timber-merchants' as Tommy Ryan, Jimmy Kennedy, Jimmy Doyle, Mick Burns, Mackey McKenna, Donie Nealon, Mick Roche, Theo and Nicky English, Michael Cleary, Tommy Dunne, Eddie Enright, Paul Kelly, etc, could never successfully argue this point with a man of Eamon's hurling pedigree.