Sigh. Isn’t it a bit soon for Groundhog Day? How many more times this season will we have to sum up a game as follows?

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald was accused of throwing a Cabinet colleague “under the bus” and of not being “credible”, after denying she had knowledge about a file on a Garda whistleblower.

When it seemed referee Jerome Garces had formally concluded the week-long obsequies for Anthony Foley with a shrill final whistle on Saturday, Axel’s comrades took to Thomond’s famed turf for one last farewell to one of the greats of Munster and Irish rugby.

Brian Cody hailed the work of the Kilkenny medical team after patching together key players throughout the season.

Marquis De Sade wrote all his best work from his asylum cell. I really must try it sometime, especially since I might not have any choice with this team.

In the stands, on Hill 16 and wherever it was being watched on TV, long before Brian Gavin blew the last whistle, there was a knowing resignation that what we were witnessing was another victorious march towards an All-Ireland final for Kilkenny.

They don’t come more modest than Rena Buckley and Briege Corkery.

Derry City 0 Dundalk 2: Dundalk took full advantage of Cork City’s shock slip-up when boosting their back-to-back title hopes with a win at the Brandywell.

Hello, remember me? I’m the chap who used to write about Liverpool for the Examiner before some satellite TV flunky decided we’d make great Monday Night Heroes.

The global sports betting market is worth up to $3,000,000,000,000 (three trillion), the vast majority of that generated by illegal gambling, a United Nations conference on crime being held in Doha has heard.

Gasp! I’m writing this ten minutes after the final whistle and I can barely type. Not, for once, because I’ve been overdoing the sauce, but because my entire being seems to be buzzing uncontrollably.

Last week, when sounding a warning note about the next fence in United’s so-called ‘easy run-in’, I doomed: “In football as in life: never drop your guard when approaching the city of the damned.” What a joyless told-you-so this is.

Ian Keatley freely admits Ireland are a better team with Johnny Sexton at fly-half but that is a motivation for the Munster No.10 rather than a deterrent to proving he belongs at Test level.