Mike Quirke: Of course Tipperary footballers can do an Iceland, but...

I received a text last week. “Shots fired… Liam Kearns had a right pop at you”. Basically, the Tipperary manager felt my assessment of the challenge his team will pose to Kerry in Sunday’s Munster final was, in his words, very ‘blasé’. Of course Eamon Fitz wasn’t overly happy either… everyone’s a critic.

Talk about political correctness gone mad.

I’m all about respecting your opponent, because the day you don’t, is the day you invariable get caught out. But sometimes it would be nice to be able to say what you actually think without having to put a caveat on top. I suppose it would have been more palatable to use the standard ‘no disrespect to Tipperary but…’, but what does that even mean? Of course nobody is trying to disrespect Tipp. I know better than most the type of monumental effort they’ve put into reinvigorating their underage football development structures and their success they’ve enjoyed at minor and U21 level in recent years has been well merited.