TYRONE county board chairman Ciaran McLaughlin has hit out at the treatment meted to referee Martin Sludden at the end of last July’s controversial Leinster senior football final.

I MUST admit the last few weeks had blunted my enthusiasm temporarily. It wasn’t the results as such —a football fan needs to be able to take losing or a bad run of form – it was everything else.

KERRY boss Jack O’Connor believes the GAA Congress is not the forum for adopting changes to playing rules.

CORK dual star Mary O’Connor kicked five points as Inch Rovers were crowned Tesco All-Ireland Ladies senior club football champions for the very first time yesterday.

FINE GAEL are not hiding party leader Enda Kenny, finance spokesman Michael Noonan has insisted, dismissing such claims as ‘propaganda’.

LEINSTER will have Welsh referee Nigel Owens in charge of their Heineken Cup quarter-final clash with Leicester, following the latest round of appointments for next month’s European Rugby Cup matches.

THE embarrassing extent of the England rugby team’s kit sponsors Nike’s plans to commemorate the team’s foiled Grand Slam triumph can today be revealed by the Irish Examiner.

BY day they are ordinary mums, nurses, teachers and dressmakers.

FOR a long time, this game was moving towards an apparently inevitable Kildare victory without the bite or intensity you expect from games between these two, no matter what’s at stake.

WHERE to start?

UNIVERSITY College Cork will contest their first ever national senior final after coming from behind to see off Clontarf 2-1 in a fraught Irish Hockey Trophy semi-final at the Mardyke on Saturday.

EVER since they lost last year’s All-Ireland Colleges SAHC final, Árd Scoil Rís have been fuelled by a desire to rectify their mistakes.

GEORGIOS SAMARAS believes Old Firm passions pale in to insignificance in comparison to derby games in his native Greece.

IN A world where we are constantly being told that everything we know is wrong, it has always been a relief to turn to the reliably comforting certainties of 11 against 11 and highest score wins. But no longer.

THE BASKETBALL you probably know about, but Kieran Donaghy’s other sporting passion comes as a surprise over lunch.

AS dramatic denouements go, it was right up there. Needing a converted try to win, PBC Cork battered the Rockwell line through seven minutes of injury time and eventually worked Will Foley over the line with a kickable conversion seemingly to come.

IT was the bookmakers who were all smiles despite a virtual Irish monopoly on day two of the Cheltenham Festival.