ONE of the best things you can listen to this week is the BBC NI podcast, ‘The GAA Social’ featuring Oisin McConville and Peter Canavan. The pair discuss the Armagh-Tyrone rivalry of the early 2000s and also select their best combined 15. It’s a great show, full of many stories that usually end with the two counties beating the head off each other. The debate on the team is also excellent. There are a few real debating points, mostly over Armagh men like Aidan O’Rourke and Diarmaid Marsden, and it’s worth listening to see if they make the cut. Overall though, it was just a lovely reminder of a time when these two teams captured the imagination of the country.

NIALL MCCOY

IS THE craic going out of the GAA? Brian McFall told me this week that the dedication and effort that the players put into playing top flight hurling is a world away from the beer cans in the bag, and Monday clubs in the Rock Bar that he remembers. Similarly, Shane Elliott told me that he thinks the game is getting too serious and too robotic. Furthermore, in the In Focus feature this week, All-Ireland winning Donegal player Martin McElhinney said that the effort to try to win All-Irelands makes it harder for older players to keep up. The conclusion that some will draw is that the GAA should try to put the fun back into intercounty football. I’m not so sure I agree. The players who are young and fit love the challenge of trying to be the best. If the older players can’t stick the pace, it is clubs that will benefit from early retirements.

RONAN SCOTT

GONNA have a bit of a journo whinge here; Dean Rock did an interview last week, and yeah, there it was, a few paragraphs down: ‘Dean was speaking at the roll-out of some AIG insurance thingy.’ (not quoting it precisely there). Would it really kill the Dubs do to the odd interview for the sake of I don’t know, promoting our games or just being helpful or whatever? Every bloody time they seem to be hogging some product or other. I find it tasteless and undignified, being honest about it. Not sure how Dublin-based reporters stand it, but I suppose beggars can’t be choosers. Anyway it really grinds my gears and contributes to the impression that they’re more ‘professional’ than the rest of us peons.

NIALL GARTLAND