GAA drugs record can never be too clean

The GPA continue to get it in the neck from some quarters but it can never be said their communication channels with their members are poor.

A day before the GAA revealed players would be subject to blood as well as urine testing from this year on, footballers and hurlers had been informed by their representative body what was coming.

In Austin’s Bergstrom Airport as the All-Stars travelling party waited for a connecting flight to Newark, a hurler read out the details of the new anti-doping measures and sighed. His exasperation said it all. Professional in arm but not in hand.