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While most of the attention that is paid to the Mayo sideline is concentrated on what James Horan is doing and possibly thinking, one of his main lieutenants, Tom Prendergast, is as much an important cog in the Mayo wheel. Horan’s trusted ally since their days together with Ballintubber is another deep thinker on the game, but likes to keep things simple when talking about how Mayo have got to where they are. “It's like everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it,” he said last week.

Although he was powerless to do anything to help his team-mates, from his place; injured and on the bench in the Hogan Stand as Mayo took on more water early on than they could bail out over the seventy minutes of last years All Ireland final, Andy Moran still has taken plenty from that most recent sunken Mayo adventure into late September football. Shipping two goals inside the opening ten minutes was never going to be an easy task to navigate, but the final hour of that game and one moment in particular has steered Mayo's ship this year, back to within one game again to the having a crack at the final leg of an epic journey according to the Mayo captain. “I think, you can't underestimated it (Mayo's performance in the final hour). The guts and the courage the lads showed right from where I'd pick out a pivotal moment was,when David Clarke saved from Colm McFadden for what would have been their third goal, I think he nearly broke his own leg and Colm's leg, he was going to save that ball and it drove us on to be honest with you. To me that is the major point of that game and yes we lost the All Ireland, it was another one we lost, but we lost it fighting and that was a key thing.”

XFor more years than I can care to remember, I found myself on Friday afternoons walking out past Tirellan, finding my slot, dropping my bag down on the path, pushing out my chest, flicking the hair out of my eyes (sighs), and sticking out my thumb. In those days, it was the nearest we got to the Kerouac idea — taking your chances with the generosity of strangers and engrossing yourself in a conversation that, like the free ride, could take you anywhere.

Little did he know it when he made his surprise announcement on Monday morning, but the decision of Pope Benedict to retire may have a profound impact on how the world views work and ageing. It was a brave decision, given that he is in a post which has traditionally only been vacated in the event of a papal death, the ultimate job for life. It is a decision that can be viewed two ways by those of advanced years — it can be seen as a sense of empowerment at being able to control one’s working life at a late age, or it could be demoralising because it represents a stark reality that at some stage, people just have to stop working merely because their bodies no longer allow them to continue.

The end of April will see books, readings, writers, prose, poetry, and theatre celebrated and enjoyed throughout the city when the Cúirt festival begins next week.

Looking back over last year and Christmas in particular it would have to be said that the year turned out to be as challenging as had been expected, with a few extra unforeseen difficulties handed out by the weather, both early and late in the year. As with all challenges we believe that they can be overcome.

It was an afternoon where nothing changed, or where everything changed. Mayo went to Dublin full of hope and expectation and once again headed west with a lot more questions than answers in their pocket. Is it Croke Park? Are Mayo just not good enough? Is it history? These are all questions that John O'Mahony will hope to have the right answers for come the end of the year. But for now, the only way is forward as he sees it, and what's done is done and it's now about the next challenge.

BRIAN GRIFFIN, HIBERNIANS’ MIDFIELDER

After watching his side ship a heavy defeat in the league final, the last thing Mayo manager Kevin Reidy would have had to want to do was to pick over the bones of the game to the waiting press pack. But with the Cork celebrations going on in the background, the Tuam native was open and honest with his assessment of the sixty minutes of football that had transpired. “I'm very disappointed with our performance today more than anything else. We never really got out of the blocks at all. We're along way off Cork at the minute, but I still think that even with the score-line today we didn't do ourselves justice. We had a couple of goal chances and we didn't preform. Cork are a fine team not taking anything away from them at all, but we didn't preform. There still up there to be knocked, but were going to have to go away and lick our wounds and come back.”

There's a lull in the festival season, with the next big event, The Kilkenny Arts festival, still nearly two months away.