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2 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
Cork are the new Munster hurling champions, an unexpected outcome that sent hordes of their delirious supporters, in a crowd of 43,580, on to the pitch at the Gaelic Grounds, as Robert Downey accepted the Mick Mackey Cup. Dismissed as having no more realistic ambitions than making inroads into the 16-point mauling suffered at the hands of Limerick less than three weeks previously, their understrength team rallied magnificently to confound the serial champions.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
If the intrigue surrounding the counties’ earlier meeting centred on how convincingly Limerick could regain their form of old and how successfully their opponents could iron out troubling inconsistencies in their performances to date, the resolution made tough viewing for Cork. The champions got back within shouting distance of their pomp with as good a display as any since the 2023 All-Ireland.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
The obvious classical parallel is the eternal task of Sisyphus. Condemned to heave a boulder up a steep hill, lose control and watch it roll all the way to the bottom, he then must repeat the labour. When a four-in-a-row team loses the following year, it must feel like everything has slid down the mountain. Limerick manager John Kiely saw his side’s prospect of making history roll away in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final against Cork.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
There was a picture that prompted much agonising after the 1998 Leinster hurling final. It was of Kilkenny’s corner back and captain, Tom Hickey, trudging across an empty Croke Park pitch, the Bob O’Keeffe Cup dangling from his arm like a bag of groceries. The photograph was widely used to intuit Kilkenny’s sense of the underwhelmed despite having just beaten Offaly to win their first provincial title in five years.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
With the admittedly pretty significant exception of the 2021 All-Ireland final, Mayo’s record against Tyrone hadn’t been too bad going into the weekend’s All-Ireland Group 1 fixture in Omagh. The counties were honours-even from the six matches played until Saturday. In the absence of Kevin McStay, happily recovering from a health scare, the reins were taken by his assistant, Stephen Rochford. Nine years ago, Rochford was manager when Mayo sprang a tactical coup on Tyrone, then Ulster champions.
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3 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
Kieran McGeeney was asked if he felt Armagh are a better team this season. The manager of the All-Ireland champions took a philosophical approach to answering the question, but seemed to say it’s too early to tell. “As you know, it’s like everything else,” he said. “All the writing is done at the end. No matter what I say now, no matter what you say, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s always the final chapter when it comes to sport that determines the content of the book.
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4 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
Even by Mayo’s standards, it was an eventful few days. As the county came to terms with their footballers’ unexpected home defeat by Cavan on the first weekend of the All-Ireland series, word emerged on the Friday of last week that GAA president Jarlath Burns and director general Tom Ryan would be arriving in Westport’s Knockranny House Hotel the following Monday to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Mayo county committee.
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4 weeks ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
John Kiely has endorsed the current provincial championship format. The Limerick manager, who is preparing for Saturday week’s final against Cork, was speaking at an online media briefing, organised by Munster GAA. Asked for his views on his Waterford counterpart, Peter Queally’s call for the season to be extended on the lines of the football championship, Kiely sympathised but said that any more permissive a structure would “diminish the importance” of provincial fixtures.
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1 month ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
There is little weight attached to the concerns of beaten managers. This is something Brian Cody well understood and on the odd occasion when Kilkenny’s championship ended in defeat, he was generally nothing but respectful of the winners. His strong view that the better team was always ahead on the scoreboard at the final whistle may have suited a county enjoying serial success but for all the lack of nuance, it had an essential truth.
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1 month ago | 
irishtimes.com | Sean Moran |Seán Moran
Kevin McStay is to step back from his duties as manager of the Mayo footballers “for the immediate future” in order to deal with “some personal health issues”. In his third year as manager, McStay became unwell at a training session on Saturday and was taken for tests to hospital where he remains under observation. This removes him from the sideline for next Saturday’s All-Ireland group match against Tyrone in Omagh.
