AFTER a lot of rumours had done the round this week that the players had ousted Mickey Harte, and that Enda Muldoon was taking over until the end of the season under the discreet supervision of Rory Gallagher, the Gaelic Life’s Niall McCoy brought the gossip to an end. Niall tweeted, “Mickey Harte remains Derry […]
AFTER Donegal walloped Tyrone on Saturday night in Ballybofey, I got my traditional after match Whatsapp from the great Donegal forward Tony Boyle. After every Donegal game, he sends me a picture of a pint of Guinness settling in front of him, in bars from Clones to Derry and Dungloe. The message underneath is always […]
THE night of the Ulster final, when they arrived home with the cup, Jimmy McGuinness stood in front of his players and addressed the huge crowd. “These next three games are massive for us. Really really big games. And we have got to put them front and centre. These players are a different animal now. […]
SUNDAY’S final was a fascinating study in winning and losing. I thought back to 1993 and what was in our minds throughout that season. The best way to describe it is that we were like the human cannonball at the circus. He climbs into the cannon. Gets shot out of it. Hits (hopefully) the safety net. […]
SON: Dad, why did you name my sister Jolene? Dad: Because your mother loved the song Jolene. Son: Thanks Dad. Dad: No problem, Jimmy’s Winning Matches. Advertisement On Sunday in Celtic Park, Gavin Devlin was spied on top of the stand on the gantry, carefully watching Donegal as they wore down Tyrone. “A week too […]
FR Liam McClarey, our team chaplain when we won the All-Ireland in 1993, had an audience with his Holiness the Pope in Rome last Thursday. Liam played on the Glack team that won the Derry Junior Championship in 1981. The competition is called the Joe Brolly Cup (after my late grandfather) and as my father […]
DERRY only know now that Dublin are not superhuman. Brian Mullins was giving us one of his intense team talks in the changing room after training one night and said: “Every sportsperson is only human. They only have two arms and two legs like you.” I said, “What about Maradona?” “F**k off Joe” he said. […]
THE bad news for the rest of us is that the conservatism that threatened to bring an end to Dublin’s dynasty has been replaced with the adventure that created it in the first place. “Balls out football,” as Pat Gilroy calls it. As we saw on Sunday against Tyrone, Dublin are in annihilation mode. I predicted […]
THE Dublin and Galway game on Saturday began with the usual musical diazepam. If the soldiers whose lives were pledged to Ireland had been marching behind this singing they would have come over very sleepy, then changed their minds and gone home. The mood didn’t improve after the throw-in. Éamonn Fitzmaurice was co-commentator on RTÉ. He has […]
DUBLIN’S opening two boring defeats in the league prompted me to ask the question, “Why won’t they kick the ball in to Con O’Callaghan?” For those games, he was a peripheral presence, traking back and tackling round the middle third, taking a handpass at the last minute in a crowded defence. What a waste. Like […]
