AS THE great Starry Crowley, a much loved rugby figure and proprietor of the Western Star pub in Cork was prone to say on occasions: “It’s the end of an arena.”

ON the second day of last week’s storms and spring tides, I walked down the long, sandy beach that stretches away from the village of Courtmacsherry, in west Cork.

PLEASE, please, please, can we avoid having an All-England Champions’ League decider? Please? At least, yesterday’s quarter-final and semi-final draw kept two of Blighty’s finest apart, and I think we should be thankful for small mercies.

Charlie Mulqueen talks to rugby legend Gerald Davies about the principles of rugby, touring and being next year’s Lions manager.

AGES 18-20, The promising minor: One night the phone rings and it’s the manager of the county side, not his pal pretending same.

AFTER a 1-0 defeat which left something of a sour taste in the mouths of the hosts, the Republic of Ireland U-19s will be looking for Bulgaria to do them a favour when they play Germany on Saturday while Sean McCaffrey’s men will be hoping to get their qualification ambitions back on track with victory against Hungary.

CORK South West TD Denis O’Donovan has taken the blame for wrongly building up hopes of new jobs in Dunmanway before the last general election.

EXCUSE MY old Norse but what a bummer of a summer to come home to, after flying all the way from Iceland.

DOES Fungi, the famous Dingle dolphin, speak with a Kerry accent?

ALEX FERGUSON has launched a bitter attack on Joe Cole for the tackle he felt should have seen Chelsea reduced to nine men at Old Trafford yesterday.

EDDIE O’SULLIVAN didn’t appear like someone whose job was on the line after another sub-standard display against a better, more cohesive France at the Stade de France last night.

BE careful what you wish for, you just might get it, a modern version of an old Chinese proverb.

AFTER reshuffling the cards, new Labour leader Eamon Gilmore put together the strongest Dáil hand he could — despite not having a full deck to play with.

ITALY’S stuttering World Cup campaign showed no sign of improvement last night as they struggled to an unconvincing Pool C win over brave Portugal at the Parc des Princes.

ENGLAND left-back Ashley Cole admits Chelsea’s fans were right to boo the team after Jose Mourinho’s side could only draw with Champions League minnows Rosenborg on Tuesday night.

IRELAND’S reputation for corruption in the public sector has not improved in the past year according to Transparency International.

WALES boss John Toshack admitted he was praying for the final whistle as his team hung onto a 2-1 victory over San Marino.

BASEBALL uses the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ system and Steve Staunton will do well to avoid such a fate after his Irish side made it a hat-trick of embarrassing displays in a European qualifying campaign that has utterly laid bare the manager’s inexperience at this level.

GERMANY, playing within themselves, did just enough to get what they needed.

THERE can be no equivocating or refusal to face facts after this near horror for Irish rugby at the Stade Chaban Delmas last night. Ireland were awful, and deeply embarrassed by a Namibian side ranked 24th in the world and who were in no way flattered by running their vaunted opponents to a margin of 15 points when many good judges believed it would be three or four times that amount.