Allen a winner and a gentleman

HALF an hour after the final act in the 2006 All-Ireland hurling final, and there’s a mob scene outside the Cork hurlers’ dressing-room.

The press are waiting for the usual from the losing side: a snarl about the referee. A curse about the pitch. A chop across the knuckles of the media.

We’re going to be disappointed (as it happens, when the reporters do get a flake across the fingers it’s at the other end of the corridor).