Search Results for 'The Sunday Game'

Mayo can get to another All-Ireland final

HAM SANDWICH have had a great 12 months with their profile rising to new heights throughout 2011 and to top it off they tour Ireland this month.

At the tail end of last September, James Horan took on the challenge of rebuilding and renewing the Mayo team. In the first flush of his tenure, only a couple of minutes after being approved by the county board delegates in fact, he faced the press and gave a very simple promise that his side kept up last Sunday to the very end. “I know a lot of Mayo supporters are down in the dumps with how things finished last year, but what we will insist on is that any time a Mayo player goes out he will give it absolutely everything he has.”

Mass exodus of young hurlers

I got word earlier in the week that the wagons were circling ahead of Mayo’s GAA County Board convention on Tuesday night last at the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris. It appears that Noelle Horan, the outgoing PRO, had a major difference of opinion with a number of county board officers regarding restrictions on her access to the county team’s dressing-room earlier this year. “Access all areas” apparently wasn’t a problem under the previous management and it would seem there wasn’t too much of a problem regarding her access to the dressing room earlier this year under the current management. Obviously something went awry at some juncture that sullied what appeared up to then to be the perfect harmonious relationship. There had been a number of verbal clashes at earlier meetings and it was generally felt that things might get a little ugly at the convention on Tuesday night. There was no pairing system in place for this meeting with all county board officers expected to attend to display a collective unity against the maverick! My informant tells me that Ms Horan distributed a pre-prepared script which she later read from. She had a right swipe at the county board executive, outlining instances when she was “constructively prevented” from performing her duties and other occasions when she was “repeatedly undermined” by members of the board. Her own club member, Mr Sean Feeney, the county secretary, came in for scathing criticism from her, suggesting that he had no right to criticise players for doing certain media work. The suggestion was that Mr Feeney wasn’t shy of using the airways himself when it suited him. It is difficult to comprehend what caused such a breakdown in “the family”, but I would offer that it will be quite some time, if ever, before we see Ms Horan seek a nomination to become an officer of the Mayo County Board.

Like many other sports fans I am a big admirer of much of the material produced in the RTE sports department on both TV and radio.

Like many other sports fans I am a big admirer of much of the material produced in the RTE sports department on both TV and radio.

Like many other sports fans I am a big admirer of much of the material produced in the RTE sports department on both TV and radio. Programmes on television like The Sunday Game, The Premiership, coverage of the rugby championship, the Olympics, World Cups, and the like are usually very professionally done and provide a lot of quality entertainment. My licence fee goes out by standing order every August and I have no real gripe with the television directors/producers who earn their crust out in Montrose. They do their job, and many of them do it very well. In our household we are becoming more radio than TV people anyway — old age and trying to set a good example to the children are taking their toll; I find myself listening to Morning Ireland and Drive Time much more now, sitting in traffic, keeping up to date with all the inward bound cut-backs, pay-cuts, or independent TD allowances that are indeed “entitlements” for the chosen few. Heaven.