When first asked to write a column for this paper, the esteemed sports editor gave me three guidelines: Write clearly; be informative; and stay impartial, writes Jack Anderson 

Sport is about results.

Football’s back! Which, incidentally, is something you only say if you enjoy deliberately trolling League of Ireland fans.

I was in a bar down the road from Fitzgerald Stadium before the Kerry-Kildare game last Saturday. The volume on the TV was turned up as the Irish women’s hockey team began their second penalty shoot-out of the tournament for a place in the final of the World Cup.

“It’s time for something new in Tipp. The group of players, we want to give them the best chance going forward. They just want to hear something new. I’ve been there a very long time and I’m certain sure those guys needed a break from me.”

At the end of the match yesterday, I shook hands with Michael Lyster. It may be my last time doing a live TV game with Michael, who retires from RTÉ at the end of this year, and I wanted to acknowledge his help to me, and his absolute professionalism, over the years.

Are we now the best little country in the world at rejecting a narrative? Bursting bubbles might be the true people’s game.

A couple of years ago, Ronan O’Gara wrote in these pages that: “The more I am learning, the less I take for granted what I savoured in the Munster dressing room every day as a player. A club’s culture is an unspoken language. The trademark. You can’t see it or hear it. You feel it.”

At the end of the match yesterday, I shook hands with Dave Punch, the former Limerick hurler, who works for RTÉ. He asked me if I saw the attendance. I did, I said — 71,000. Dave corrected me. ‘No, Dalo, 71,073.’ 

Few understand the Clare v Galway dynamic better than Gus Lohan, who hurled for both counties in the same season. There was county football played too, for Monaghan, and Gus’ switch from Cappataggle in Galway to Newmarket-on-Fergus in Clare paid rich dividend for the Banner a generation later, when sons Brian and Frank won two All-Ireland titles. Today, in Croke Park, a father and son will take some joy whatever the result.

The seats in the middle of the stand at a nice height are generally regarded as the best in which to view a game.

John Allen remains the last Cork hurling manager to win the All-Ireland — and the last Limerick manager to win the Munster Championship, yet his achievements and methods have tended to be underestimated.

Looking for the perfect bikini? Annmarie O'Connor has the best in show.

What an enjoyable afternoon of football. Perhaps we have become so programmed to the drudge and so used to all the sideways, lateral passing that you’re just so happy when games come along like this, even if it wasn’t 10 out of 10.

The old cliché that form goes out of the window for the North London derby certainly held true. Arsenal, lacklustre so far, were lively and dominant; Spurs showed absolutely nothing of the form that has got everyone talking and referee Mike Dean firmly put to bed the view that he is biased towards Spurs.