John Fogarty: Knockout championship failure is key to the success of GAA’s plans

On Larry McCarthy’s watch, the tried and tainted knockout provincial-based Sam Maguire has been given another go only this time the results are exactly what was anticipated

Aidan O’Shea runs out for his 150th Mayo appearance, a 24-point mauling of Leitrim in Sunday’s Connacht SFC semi-final at Castlebar. The caps on attendances masks the fact that football — at least until the business end of the Championship — had become a turn-off, writes our columnist. Picture: Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Allow us this flight of fancy but imagine Mel Brooks at the ripe old age of 95 has decided to stage his famed musical The Producers for one final run in Dublin’s Bord Gáis Theatre.

To play Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom, he has cast former GAA president John Horan and his successor Larry McCarthy. As the plot goes, Bialystock and Bloom hatch a plan to earn $1m (€843,245) each by making a Broadway flop, overselling shares in a play designed to fail.