EIGHT years is a long time in scuffling.

Paul Kerrigan should have the world at his feet. One of the key players on Cork’s All-Ireland winning team, he has a business masters in his back pocket and youth on his side — but the young attacker can’t get work.

STYLE isn’t a birthright; it is a knack which few have and many seek to emulate. Such is the case for princess-in-waiting Kate Middleton who was dubbed fashion royalty long before her nuptials to Prince William were ever announced.

FOOTBALL – bloody hell! as Alex Ferguson famously remarked.

DONEGAL manager Jimmy McGuinness yesterday added his name to the list of high-profile figures to have railed against the GAA’s use of referee assessors and the perceived pressure such figures place on referees, to the detriment of the games themselves.

SO how do you solve a problem like Messi? Happily for the rest of us, that’s one for Alex Ferguson to puzzle out tonight. Banning him is out of the question, I suppose, so that removes one of the manager’s favourite tactics for handling tricky customers.

THERE was a time when Gary Maguire had to sustain himself on back-slaps and handshakes.

FRANCISCO PIEDRAHITA, a 65-year-old head of a university in Colombia, said he heard searchers and called for help the morning after he got lost in a Louisiana swamp. But it was three more days before he was found.

THREE reception rooms, four bedrooms, a lot of garden, and a cul de sac setting facing a green, are all to the favour of 56 Wrenville, a detached family home on the Kinsale road just outside Carrigaline in Cork.

At Bayview House Tommy Barker finds a harbour hillside property that brightly lives up to promise of the site’s prospect — exceptional.

Drumcondra’s Don Patricio became Barcelona’s manager just before the city was taken over by anarchists, the club’s president was shot and liquidation loomed. Richard Fitzpatrick unravels a club legend’s story

FERGUS McFADDEN spoke three days ago about his frustrations at spending all but 15 minutes on the bench in Cardiff but the Ireland international will get his chance from the first whistle at Thomond Park this weekend.

THE WORDS “cat” and “cream” immediately spring to mind, when a beaming Michael Fassbender comes loping into the Dorchester Hotel in London this week.

PUPPY OAKS champion Droopys Twirl, is the likely favourite for the Sporting Press Irish Oaks which starts at Shelbourne tomorrow night.

TWELVE years ago, almost eight decades after the FAI had been founded, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland faced one another in a senior international friendly for the very first time.

AT the start last night, the talk was all about those who chose to stay away, from James McCarthy and Marc Wilson to the boycotting Northern Ireland fans to the many thousands of locals who found they had better things to be doing on a sunny evening in early summer than coming to the Aviva Stadium.

OKAY, hands up. Never mind the never-ending saga of Manny Eboué’s infuriating naivety, I take full responsibility for the injury-time fiasco at the Emirates on Sunday.

REFEREE Pat McEnaney has voiced his opposition to the new refereeing rule which comes into force for this year’s All-Ireland championships.