TV coverage comes with a warning for club players

In times past, pieces of magic may have drawn a few lines in a local paper’s match report the following week and been firmly consigned to history after that. But not anymore it seems, writes Mike Quirke.

As the winter approaches, the evenings creep in and the baseball caps turn to woolly ones. This has always been the time of the season for club championship competitions to take centre stage, but never before under as bright a spotlight as we’ve seen this year.

I’ve mentioned previously that I was involved in the management of Kerins O’Rahilly’s in Tralee. We navigated our way through some treacherous waters earlier in the season and into a semi-final of the senior county championship where we faced a South Kerry side who had claimed the title as recently as 2015. We were looking to reach the final for the first time in nine years. By the long whistle, our efforts came up short.