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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Congress battle was lost but the war is only just beginning

So the ship sails on. When is a majority for change not a majority? When it is the GAA. The motion to change the football championship was carried but not by a sufficient margin.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Idea that our leaders in the GAA should be silent on big decisions is nonsense

I got to thinking in the past week about how leadership works in the GAA. It is a peculiar, inverted process.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Counties must be brave and support the plan which gets their self-respect back

The music may have stopped on the inter-county playing front but the wheels of club activity grind on with plenty of big games in the coming weeks. Those are the matches that make or break hearts to a greater extent than what happens in Croke Park.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Jack O’Connor knows exactly where the blame will be placed if Kerry fall short next year

Jack O’Connor hopes that third time is just as lucky as the other two as he takes charge in Kerry again. He won’t be playing golf in any invitational tournaments in Kildare for a while after departing with indecent haste, having agreed to stay another year in the midlands. The road to hell is paved with good intentions but could anyone blame him for wanting back to his own? Jack, like Oscar Wilde, could resist anything but temptation and the Kerry job is the best or worst gig in town.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Bad smell has given way to a blend of style and substance

There is something about Tyrone, something which stirs emotions among many neutrals. In the last decade, it could hardly be classified as fawning admiration as they made themselves hard to like, even in the noughties with a team possessing a number of brilliant players. They just got grudging respect.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Wrong plan for the wrong team kills Mayo hope

The fallout from last Saturday, inside and outside Mayo, has been harsher than for most of the lost finals of the last decade. When great expectations are smashed, a wide range of human emotions surface.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Tyrone's class forwards the reason Sam Maguire is not heading west

Tyrone were not bothered about sentiment in Croke Park on Saturday evening. They acted with the calm efficiency of a German car as they throttled Mayo in much the same way as they had filleted Kerry in the semi-final. In doing so they completed the most remarkable year for any team in the history of this great game.

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Colm O’Rourke Opinion Inflated grades an incalculable mess waiting to happen

Last February, I wrote an article for the Sunday Independent in which I pointed out that the accredited grades system was a mess waiting to happen. It has turned out much worse than that.

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Colm O'Rourke's All-Ireland final preview: Intriguing battle of wills may go to Tyrone

Tyrone invited the media into their lair in Garvaghey last week, but Feargal Logan made it clear they would not answer any questions relating to Covid. I think he was right to do so.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Old-style spirit does the trick for Tyrone

If Covid dominated the build-up to yesterday’s All-Ireland semi-final, there was no sign of it in the Tyrone performance as they did the usual by hounding Kerry at every turn. If Kerry did not have David Clifford this game would never have gone to extra time as, despite being marked closely by Ronan McNamee, he was still able to create havoc.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Mayo’s big task now is to cool fans’ giddiness

The best thing that has happened to Mayo has been the postponement of the second All-Ireland football semi-final between Tyrone and Kerry.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Fearless warriors seize the day to end an empire

Mayo ripped down the walls of an empire in Croke Park last night. They did so with bravery as much as class but long before this was over the were the complete masters.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Tyrone must be given time to recover and play semi-final

The doubts which hung over Saturday’s All-Ireland semi-final between Tyrone and Kerry have been dispelled. Tyrone yesterday withdrew their team on medical advice. The doomsday scenario has materialised.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Dreams and reality collide for Mayo, but I will believe it when I see the scoreboard at the end showing Dublin behind

Dublin and Mayo clash again on Saturday and at this stage we should be getting a contest as distinct from a match. Don’t bet on it. Mayo have been here too many times before. All heart, effort and plenty of skill. Close, but no cigar. Yet they keep on returning with renewed hope.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Dublin doubters jumping the gun

So Dublin are no longer favourites for the All-Ireland. That’s not something that will keep them awake at night. It is the kind of background noise they are excellent at shutting out.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Mayo will be too hot for Galway to handle

It is good to see the Connacht final in the big field by the canal today. After all, it belongs to everyone and Mayo supporters have paid for a lot of it, apart from the Dubs. Yet even Dublin supporters did not bother with last Sunday and the crowd did not come near the 18,000 permitted.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion The Dubs will get their house in order and Meath could be on the receiving end

The conventional wisdom is that Dublin have become vulnerable. Sated by achievement, they have become like Viking lords where wine, women and song are the order of the day. If only that were true.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Cluxton’s road less travelled: Like Jim Gavin, he did his job but did not think it made him different

Now we have the Cluxton affair. It’s not in the same league as some of the scandals of the past but it is one that continues to garner column inches. When does taking time out amount to retirement? At 39 years-of-age there is not much time for a holiday and then a triumphant return.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion The road to the inevitable continues but there are good matches to be found below tiny top tier

The process of sorting the chaff from the wheat continues today — independence day for some, execution for others. It is a very cold, even brutal, sort of thing with very little consideration of the emotion involved.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Lack of competitiveness in Leinster gives us a glimpse of the future if provincial format remains

The championship is on. After an enjoyable Allianz League, we are now back to the slaughter of the innocents, though after yesterday at least today’s fare is for the most part a battle among equals.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion In the first seven minutes of Kerry’s championship, Sean O’Shea decided to win the game on his own

Killarney has become a sort of killing fields this year. Galway and Tyrone could testify to the destructive power of the Kerry forwards on their home patch.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Kerry still have to prove that they can beat the very best

Looking ahead to the provincial and All-Ireland football championships is not exactly like trying to pick the winning Lotto numbers. When it comes to the Sam Maguire, there are only five possible numbers and in reality, there are probably only two.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Leaders of the pack show their prowess in contrasting forms

There was always a bit of an edge to games between Kerry and Tyrone. It is a legacy issue and those three All-Ireland final defeats in the noughties stick in the craw of every Kerry player and supporter. So if it was a friendly game between kids from Kerry and Tyrone where jumpers were thrown on the ground for goalposts, there would still be something at stake, most importantly wounded pride. That won’t heal until Kerry beat Tyrone in an All-Ireland final.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Heading out for the decider was the closest thing to going over the top in war

Meath played Dublin in the preliminary round of the Leinster Championship about six weeks ago — or at least that is what it seems like to me. Yet the records show 30 long winters and 30 short summers have passed since those games in June and July of 1991.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Attack is once more the best way forward

As the grip of the coronavirus pandemic continues to weaken, there has been a widespread outbreak of football in the Allianz League. Perhaps St Peter posted on social media that those who continually hand-pass in circles are to be cast out to eternal damnation and those who want to attack will be deemed fit to pass through the pearly gates. Or so it says in the GAA book of revelations.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Ulster football fest shows that leopards can change their spots

It was Ulster football on Saturday night — but not as we know it. We are used to Ulster football as a turgid exercise with little in the way of self-expression. The northern section of Division 1 is a mini Ulster championship and I was not expecting any of these leopards to change their spots.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Leinster dreams will again be crushed by Grim Reaper in blue

No one was able to stop Dublin. Kerry, Tyrone and Mayo all tried and all failed. Then along came the plague and people thought this must have been sent from on high to halt Dublin’s bid for six in a row. But the long march continued and, in fact, was easier than ever.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Now is the end to our winter of discontent

The reaction to last Sunday’s piece about the changing role of the goalkeeper caught me by surprise. A lot of people had tales to tell about characters from the past. You’d need to be at least 50 years old to remember most of them, though, because education and political correctness have driven them out of business.

Colm O'Rourke Opinion Wheel has turned full circle for game’s last man standing

I’m not sure if the changing role of the goalkeeper in football should be seen as evolution or revolution.

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Colm O'Rourke Opinion Lack of vision leaves no romance in provincial format

It must have been the slowest draw in sporting history and the one that created least interest. There was no point in dragging out a championship draw last week which was never going to raise a cheer. Dublin playing the winners of Wicklow and Wexford is unlikely to cause much debate.