Does high-profile sporting successes on international scale boost interest at lower levels?

There’s no clearly defined way to sporting success, writes  Brendan O’Brien   

Wednesday, mid-morning, in Dublin’s Conrad Hotel and the only discordant notes in the lobby are an elderly American couple arguing over the time one of them spent on the laptop that morning. They’ve already missed at least one hail storm, after all, but the mood is far more convivial and the atmosphere brighter inside the ballroom around the back.

It is 100 days on the button until the opening ceremony for 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic Council of Ireland have hoovered up a good bunch of athletes, coaches, team leaders and other support personnel to mark the occasion before they are fed to an expectant media posse for whom all this will eliminate hours of fruitless phone calls and frustration.