CONTROVERSY raged at Fairyhouse last evening when the on-course bookmakers - over 20 of them - refused to bet on the first race.

It was the first time that the Cats were beaten in the Championship on home soil since 1949.

Are we there yet? The halfway point of the general election campaign is kicking in this weekend. Yet a cursory examination of the ground traversed since the election was called on January 14 would suggest that in some respects things haven’t really got motoring.

Last year’s defeated Cork County SHC finalists CIT advanced to the fourth round of this year’s competition as they saw off Carbery at Páirc Uí Rinn last night.

It’s 10 years ago now that they all came on stream together, the one B and 4 Cs.

There were eight teams in the bowl yesterday morning but all ears were for just three.

GLENN RYAN didn’t have a happy return to long-time stomping ground St Conleth’s Park as Kildare subjected his Longford side to a double-score beating in the O’Byrne Cup.

WITH all the wailing about the hurling league and its crowds in recent weeks, it brought to mind a dressing room scene from the late 90s.

EMMETT BOLTON returns to the Kildare side for tomorrow’s All-Ireland qualifier against neighbours Meath in Páirc Tailteann in Navan.

New Dublin football manager Pat Gilroy has been more open with the media than his predecessor Paul Caffrey ahead of their Leinster SFC final clash with Kieran McGeeney’s Kildare in Croke Park on Sunday.

FOR most of the last eight years, the rather dismissive perception of Dublin has been that of a big fish in Leinster’s pond but one that shrank to the proportions of a relative minnow when it migrated into the deeper waters of the All-Ireland series.

Brendan O’Brien

JUST like two years ago, Dublin and Tyrone will meet in Croke Park tonight long after the sun goes down but it was the defeat to the Ulster side on a rain-soaked August afternoon last summer which Barry Cahill points to as his darkest hour in blue.

WHEN Pat Kelly emerges from the Hogan Stand tunnel on Monday, it will be the first time he has felt the HQ turf under his studs since September 2004 when his first All-Ireland experience was spoiled by Colm Cooper.

HE HAS played in two All-Ireland semi-finals, won three Leinster titles and represented Ireland but the last time Alan Brogan had a problem with nerves was when he walked into St Declan’s school in Cabra to sit his Leaving Cert physics exam eight years ago.

TOM HOGAN'S Kalderon has promised to deliver a decent pot for a while and he did it at the conclusion of the Tralee Festival yesterday when putting up a game display in the Listed Ruby Stakes.