I’VE watched Diarmuid Connolly highlight reels on You Tube on numerous occasions down through the years. He was an unbelievable talent – possibly the best striker of a ball that I’ve ever seen, physically powerful and perfectly balanced, a real maestro basically – but I don’t think he’s been as integral to Dublin’s success as Brian Fenton, James McCarthy, Stephen Cluxton and Jack McCaffrey. It was rare enough that I thought “Jesus, Connolly is having an absolute stormer”, and his tendency to drift in and out of games was probably why he ended up with ‘only’ two All-Stars in his collection. Discipline was a bit of a problem as well, but on the flipside he usually excelled when games were in the melting pot so I still consider him a great player, though not an all-time great.

NIALL GARTLAND

THE GAA statement cancelling club fixtures was very clearly a slap-down for some of the videos and images that appeared in recent weeks. The GAA’s return to play protocols are safe, but the problem comes when players and/or supporters sit in the pubs for a number of days or share cars to matches and training when they can go separately. We all have a collective responsibility and this was only ever going to work if people tried to stick to the rules. The GAA is sending us to bed early without and supper.

NIALL MCCOY

JOE Brolly said earlier this week said nobody basically cares about the All-Ireland Senior Championships – and he seemed to include the players in that. Fair enough, and the club championships have been an astonishing success while most of us are bored of the Dubs at this stage, but there’s a chance it could be the most intriguing race for Sam in a long time. The reversion to an old-style knock-out format should add excitement, Dublin have lost a couple of key players, and a winter championship adds a bit of novelty as well. If it goes ahead, it’ll likely be behind closed doors which isn’t ideal, but it’s better than nothing, right?

NIALL GARTLAND

It’s a hard time for everybody, especially people who were not allowed to go see their clubs due to crowd restrictions. Clubs and county boards really stepped up to the plate with their streaming services. It seems inevitable that all county games will be behind closed doors, so it’s excellent news to hear that broadcasters are really going above and beyond to bring as many games as possible to the public. These things cost money, so appreciate what they’re doing.

NIALL MCCOY

Inter-county players are soft. I was chatting to Cathal Murray this week and he reminded me that in his day, inter-county football started in October, when the National Leagues began. They would train from October right up until May when the championship started. And they could have been knocked out after just one game. These days county footballers Don’t start till January and they’ll be finished before September gets here. They don’t know they’re born.

RONAN SCOTT

I have had to rethink my previous opinion about the organisation of the season. Previously I thought that the GAA might have planned to run off the club season first this year in the hope that the Coronavirus would have eased come October and they could get loads of money on the gates for the Ulster Club Championship. Perhaps someone thought that, But time has proven that this virus doesn’t care who you are, nor what championship you play in. Though at least the virus will let us watch the county competition from the comfort of our own homes.

RONAN SCOTT