Pulling Connolly out of hat Gavin’s best trick yet

“We’ve got James McCarthy back on the pitch, Eoin Murchan, Jonny Cooper, Diarmuid Connolly’s back training with us, Rob McDaid is back, Peadar Byrne Ó Cofaigh is with the U20s, Darren Gavin’s coming back this week as well so there’s a whole host of players who are returning to play and then there is the squad themselves.”

So nonchalant was Jim Gavin’s delivery about the return of Connolly, it could have been a Patrick Nice sketch from The Fast Show, the man who briefly and casually reports of the good luck that has befallen him: “Genevene’s uncle died unexpectedly and left me all his yachts. And then Tamera came running out of The Somerset House as fast as her little legs could carry her to tell me that I was a direct descendant of Kubla Khan. Which was nice.”