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3 weeks ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
Before we get to Laois and a county’s chances in the Leinster championship, senior football captain Brian Byrne gets to talking about life on the beat as a garda in Dublin. Going from studying economics and politics in UCD to graduating from Templemore and patrolling the beat around Crumlin and Drimnagh, Conor McGregor country. Describing the sense of shock that lingered from the Dublin riot, when the city caught fire and made global headlines.
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3 weeks ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
In fairness to Paul Geaney, he could have gone all Jack O’Connor on it and invoked the Arsène Wenger defence that his manager used on Sunday. You know the one: ‘I didn’t see it
’ But he doesn’t.
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3 weeks ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
What was it that Oscar Wilde said about the Leinster football championship? To lose one management team on the eve of competition may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose a second set of coaches looks like carelessness. It started last week with Carlow manager Shane Curran dropping the bombshell that he was quitting barely 10 days out from a provincial opener against Meath – and taking his backroom team with him.
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3 weeks ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
Leinster GAA chairman Derek Kent has confirmed that the provincial senior football semi-finals will be moved out of Croke Park for the first time in 30 years. Between dwindling attendances and Dublin’s stranglehold – the county is chasing a record 15th Leinster title in a row and a 19th in 20 seasons – the double-header has lacked interest and atmosphere in recent years in the cavernous surrounds of Croker.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
Don’t let anyone tell you that winning a National League title in Croke Park doesn’t matter. With the start of the provincial championships just a week away, the big question this weekend, however, is whether it is in the best interests of the competing counties to be in Croke Park.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
For a team and management who supposedly didn’t understand the new rules, reaching a Division 1 League final is very Mayo. Given Kevin McStay’s long established credentials as a sharp-eyed analyst, in print and on television, a rules guru on The Sunday Game and someone with a wealth of inter-county experience, the accusation early doors in the Allianz Football League was cheap and unnecessary.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
Liam Cahill is the first to admit his team have been here before. Rewind to last spring and Tipperary were trundling along nicely in the Allianz Hurling League. When the shutters came down on the group stage, his side were enjoying the rarefied air at the top end of Group B in Division 1. Today's top videos STORY CONTINUES BELOW Only Limerick had more points. Only Limerick had beaten them across five matches. And even then, by the narrowest of margins.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
In one fell swoop, TG4 did its best to quell all of the noise. The misguided idea that there aren’t enough GAA games available free-to-air? Today's top videos STORY CONTINUES BELOW Here’s a ‘Super Sunday’ of viewing in the true sense of the phrase, with the Irish language station going all out for the final round of games in the Allianz Football League this weekend.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
It’s a week when Cork hurling was reminded simultaneously of its glory days and of its own mortality. The passing of Ger Fitzgerald caused a generation and more of fans of the game to pause and take stock. To recall some of the matches and moments that explained why the tributes were so warm and effusive for the popular Midleton player who won All-Irelands in 1986 and 1990 to go with three Munster titles and a National League.
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1 month ago | 
extra.ie | Philip Lanigan
Listening to Leitrim manager Steven Poacher, it was hard not to be reminded of that old maxim: ‘if you’re explaining, you’re losing’. Now to be fair to him, he did give a passionate and articulate defence of why the drastic step was taken by the county to not field a senior football team for Saturday’s Division 3 Football League fixture against Fermanagh at Páirc Seán Uí Eslín in Ballinamore.
