Search Results for 'the Hogan Stand'

We all like someone good batting for us. Someone who can go out, without resort to a note or a rehearsed rote-learned speech. Who sounds lyrical but not flowery. Who speaks sense. Who preaches what is right. We all love it when our leaders are people who orate easily, who can melt hearts with their smiles and their personality, who can defuse the most tense of situations with an ability to bring sides together. Because when our leaders look and sound well, we think that we look and sound well. If these are the people who represent us, by extension, then we are all the better for having them lead us.

We were reading the papers last Friday night when a few texts hit the phone to say that Joe McDonagh had died.

We all like someone good batting for us. Someone who can go out, without resort to a note or a rehearsed rote-learned speech. Who sounds lyrical but not flowery. Who speaks sense. Who preaches what is right. We all love it when our leaders are people who orate easily, who can melt hearts with their smiles and their personality, who can defuse the most tense of situations with an ability to bring sides together. Because when our leaders look and sound well, we think that we look and sound well. If these are the people who represent us, by extension, then we are all the better for having them lead us.

For the second time in three years, Castlebar Mitchels dream of bringing the Andy Merrigan Cup home with them was stopped at the final stage by opposition from Dublin. Unlike this time two years ago when the Mitchels adventure came on the back of their first county title in 20 years, this was a Mitchels side who had came back again this year and saw off last year’s champions Corofin, before seeing off Crossmaglen in an epic semi-final. However, they met a Ballyboden St Enda’s side who had a game plan that worked to a tee, with runners from deep causing Castlebar all sorts of problems and the static nature of the Mitchels attack playing straight into their hands. Castlebar will be disappointed with how they performed on the day and will know they could have done much better than they did.

The great Hollmount-Carramore All Ireland adventure came to an end in Croke Park on Saturday night, where the south Mayo men came up just short against an impressive St Mary’s, Cahersiveen side in the All Ireland final.

On Sunday afternoon one of the greats of Ardnaree's past Fr Peter Quinn will be laid to rest in St Patrick's cemetery in Kilglass. The current crop of Ardnaree players will be hoping that by the time Fr Quinn, who won All Ireland medals with Mayo in 1950 and 51, is laid to rest they will have followed in his footsteps and walked the staircase in Croke Park and become All Ireland champions.

Tomorrow evening in Croke Park, if all things go to plan, Darren Coen will be standing half-way up the Hogan Stand looking out on the field of the greatest victory of his club's history. Does he have a speech written ready for that moment? No, Coen will be shooting from the hip like he has on the field this season and in his speeches after wins in Mayo and Connacht. "No I won't think about that, I got a bit of slagging about my speeches already this year, they might have been a bit off the cuff, but look I won't change the routine, whatever comes out will come out, and hopefully I'll get the chance to go up the steps and relish it, and it'll be a dream come true, but it's all about winning at the end of the day as a team," he told the Mayo Advertiser last week.

It might not have had the drama and frustration of how things ended last year in Limerick, but at the end of the day the result was the same and Mayo were bound for home on Sunday evening, with plenty of questions and plenty of regrets in the boot. In the past 12 months, Mayo have played in four All Ireland semi-finals (including replays both years) and not got over the line and back to the All Ireland final. Plenty time will be spent over the winter months picking over where it went wrong again and what could have been done. At the end of the day, the better team won. Dublin should have killed us off the first day when they were seven points up, but they made no mistake last Sunday when we were unable to hold onto a four point lead with the game entering the final straight.

When he interviewed for the job of minor hurling manager last year, Jeffery Lynskey was told "this was probably the worst minor team ever". Roll on nine months and Lynskey's minor marvels were climbing the steps of the Hogan Stand to claim Galway's 10th All Ireland minor title.

"When you're younger, you play enough All Irelands up against the gable end of the house. I must have played in 50 All Irelands around the side of the house already, and  I won them all. "