If you were to take the wording of the GAA’s new streaming policy literally, it would effectively mean the end of all streaming. It feels more like a scare tactic than something to be applied rigorously. It is well-intentioned but completely unworkable.

GAA’s new streaming policy well-intentioned but completely unworkable

THERE is a sense that the GAA’s new streaming policy that is very similar to how Noel McCaffrey’s motion to Congress around the volume of games inter-county players should have with their club was vie...

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🙌 Organised Derry's pressing pulverises Cork 🧠 Inventive Louth look to be evolving again 🧤 McColekeeper and Donegal's collapse defence ❌ Access denied: overthinking on match footage Piece on what was saw in the weekend's football league games ⏬

Organised Derry, inventive Louth, the Mulreany-McCole connection and 1980s thinking around match footage: National League observations

LESS than a minute before half-time, Derry were in a good position. Having played against the wind, they led Cork by a point.

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August All-Ireland finals are a bullshit move. They make no positive difference to anyone except journalists. There isn’t a single solid argument to do it. This week’s podcast with Find Insurance NI Watch/listen in full YouTube: tinyurl.com/5n8s68e3 Spotify: tinyurl.com/2mud2kp3

This week’s Monday Club podcast from The Irish News. Segment here from our deep focus on Armagh. Also looked at the Antrim-Davy Fitz marriage. Watch/listen in full wherever you get your podcasts, links below YouTube: tinyurl.com/3pwy5hhm Spotify: tinyurl.com/5e6dvuzv Apple: tinyurl.com/2suk72xa

Studied Tyrone’s 2025 with a view to their 2026. Three things really jump out #GAA

Tyrone in focus: Firepower, physicality and futureproofing the goalkeeping position

APPRAISING Tyrone’s 2025 in a few sentences is about as difficult as it gets.

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Column: You can’t say the rules make it easy for Kerry teams to win All-Irelands. Kerry teams make it easy for themselves. In praise of Dingle, the Geaneys, Tom Sullivan and the level playing field that is club football #GAA

Cahair O’Kane: Dingle using the past to build their future

THE reds and greens and whites and 50 shades of blue paint Dingle as a snapshot of old rural Ireland.

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Where once the Donegal team was strongly concentrated on the south of the county, they’ve broadened their base significantly since the late 90s. Spreading beyond their traditional base is something Derry have struggled with

Donegal’s changing concentration gives Derry food for thought

THE biggest call Brian McEniff had to make leading into the 1992 All-Ireland final was whether to give Tommy Ryan’s place to Manus Boyle.

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Column: Closed loop thinking led me to kid myself the rules were close to perfect. They’re great and they’ve added so much but there is one major problem. The goalkeeper having the ball in open play simply has to be banned, or none of it works #GAA

Cahair O’Kane: Banning goalkeepers creating 12v11 is the last remaining barrier to the great game we crave

IN Matthew Syed’s acclaimed book Black Box Thinking, the author spends a lot of time examining a closed loop mindset.

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Column: In stoppage time of last year’s All-Ireland final, Galway kept the ball for 2 mins 46 secs. If they had been from Ulster and played the football they played last year they’d have been kicked from pillar to post. Nobody will ever play that way again

Cahair O’Kane: New rules incubating a sport whose environment was failing it

WHEN Galway were chasing an equaliser in stoppage time of last year’s All-Ireland final, they kept the ball for two minutes and 46 seconds.

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Giveaway: Win one of 5 copies of the 2025 Gaelic Football Coaching planner. All you have to do is retweet this post. Available to buy below (full colour, B&W version at £16.99 also available) or drop me a DM 🙌🏻 ROI: amazon.co.uk/2025-Gaelic-fo… NI: amazon.co.uk/Gaelic-footbal���

Are you even really a coach if you don't have a planner with the new arc drawn in it? These proved far more popular last year than I'd imagined. So here's the 2025 version. Available from Amazon (below) or via DM amazon.co.uk/2025-Gaelic-fo… (North) amazon.de/dp/B0DS9F9FK1 (ROI)

Column: Before a ball is kicked, Malachy O’Rourke has a dilemma to start sorting. Get it right and Tyrone could be in for a big summer. They have been so much less than the sum of their parts since 2021. They are now where Donegal were 12 months ago with the potential to chart the same path.

Cahair O’Kane: Malachy O’Rourke managing Tyrone’s growing frontline riches better is key to a potentially successful summer

WHEN Eddie O’Sullivan was coaching the US Eagles in the late ‘90s, a holidaying young Ronan O’Gara met him for a meal in San Francisco.

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I watched Mayo v Monaghan so you don't have to. There's no point in offering definitive judgement on January 4 but there are fragments of trends forming already. Old habits will not be easily extracted. These were my thoughts from the warmth of the house.

Football’s shape-shift will be measured in months, not weeks

IF there’s anything to be learned from the friendliest of Saturday evening friendlies, it is that the measurement of football’s shape-shift will be over months and years rather than days and weeks.

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February 1994. Errigal Ciaran players are in a Dublin hotel, ready to depart for their first All-Ireland semi-final. Supporters travelling down hear on the radio the match is off and call the hotel's front desk. History could repeat itself and delay what is a glorious opportunity for Errigal.

Weather could put a glorious opportunity for Errigal Ciaran on hold

WHEN Errigal Ciaran first journeyed into an All-Ireland semi-final, the weather played havoc.

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Austin Stacks will be the last "ninth best team" from Kerry to play in an All-Ireland intermediate semi-final. The county's position has distorted and skewed the whole grade, driving other counties to bend themselves out of shape. Piece below.

Kerry’s internal compromise could ease their distortion of intermediate and junior grades

IN the long and decorated history of post-match plámas, Billy Lee’s interview after Austin Stacks had won the Munster intermediate title was a real doozy.

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🗣️ Never spent as much time in one day on the phone. The topic was this pretty comprehensive round-up of who’s managing most of the major clubs in Ulster in 2025. Info on 70-odd clubs. Please don’t be offended if your club is not included, the clock won.

Managerial merry-go-round turning unusually softly

NORMALLY the club management merry-go-round would be ready to come off its rails at this stage but this has been a winter season notably devoid of moving and shaking.

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Shane Lennon will be the first ever outside manager of Crossmaglen Rangers. Louth’s former Games Development Officer and ex-player will be assisted by former Dublin minor Gerry Seaver, who was with Longford minors this year. They take over from Anthony Cunningham.

Column: Urban Meyer, Jeff Bezos, imbalance, retirement, greatness and sacrifice. One never came without the other. The juice is worth the squeeze when you win, or when you’re paid millions even if you don’t. Is it still worth it for everyone else?

Cahair O’Kane: The juice is only worth the squeeze if you win

URBAN Meyer has won three NCAA championships.

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Errigal have operated through a lot of this run with a really aggressive high press. It has served them well. Scotstown’s had worked well until a fortnight ago. Kilcoo have that ability to make you doubt yourself and then be right about those doubts

Errigal Ciaran’s quandary is how much they bend to Kilcoo’s will

LET’S do brass tacks here.

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Cavan’s sensory room is more than just a room. It is a cornerstone of a family’s relationship, a connection, a crumb of normality. The brainchild of Cavan boss Raymond Galligan, it is brilliant. The impact on families like the Gilsenans is incredible

Cavan’s sensory room is more than a room. It is a cornerstone of a family’s relationship, a connection, a crumb of normality

MARK Gilsenan is loathed to reach for the word ‘normal’. Hates it.

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Pretty sure my first tweet was with you too @cahairokane.bsky.social

a woman with a white mask on her face is saying hello

ALT: a woman with a white mask on her face is saying hello

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The characterisation of Kilcoo, and to a lesser extent Errigal Ciaran, as defensive teams is baffling. Their commitment to attack means they’re already well set for the new-look game. If your club coach starts off crying about rules, you’re in trouble #GAA

Cahair O’Kane: Kilcoo and Errigal’s commitment to attack says they’ll both be even harder to beat in next year’s new game

THE public perception of Kilcoo’s style of football is baffling.

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Having looked gone, Sleacht Néill hit 2-9 from 15 attacks in the last 19 minutes. Shane McGuigan lit the fire. There will be a new name on the Tommy Moore Cup in January - why wouldn't it be theirs? Report from Armagh as gallant Portaferry fall

Shane McGuigan lights fire under Sleacht Néill to lift them into wide-open All-Ireland race

AS Cushendall rowed gradually clear of them in Newry twelve months ago, it almost felt like the sun was setting on Sleacht Néill’s dream of an All-Ireland club title. It has never been more alive than...

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“The game’s always changing. In the ‘70s people were giving out about the handpasses. They’ve always gave out about Donegal. In many respects people in Donegal don’t care. The same way they don’t care the motorway stops…We’re cut off, we’re isolated.” Sat down with Jim McGuinness

Jim McGuinness: “The game’s always changing. In the ‘70s people were giving out about the handpasses. They’ve always gave out about Donegal. In many respects people in Donegal don’t care. The same way...

THERE’S almost nobody in the restaurant. The tall, lean, unmistakable figure of Jim McGuinness sweeps through the door, searching past a blissfully unaware elderly couple.

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Not sure why the #GAA hasn’t published this document as yet. As a public service, I’ll do it for them. Thread below on the rules that are being proposed at Special Congress on Saturday and a bit about what each means. You can pay me via Revolut or any major banking app 🧵😄

Ulster says yes. Good news for the FRC and fans of the proposed rule changes. Ulster counties set to almost unanimously back the new proposals at Special Congress. Also, no sign on the clár of any motions relating to the payment of managers, as was claimed by Pat Gilroy last week. Story below ⬇️

Ulster says yes: Northern counties set to back football’s rule changes

ULSTER will say yes to Gaelic football’s proposed new playing rules, paving the way for their introduction at this weekend’s Special Congress.

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Sat down with Jim McGuinness last week for a rare in-depth interview that will be published this weekend. Piece below touches on his thoughts on the proposed new rules and the return of Michael Murphy.

Jim McGuinness on rules and Murphy’s return: “The game’s gonna speed up a multiple of what it was.”

JIM McGuinness believes that the proposed new rules for Gaelic football will speed the game up “by a multiple of what it was” if Special Congress opts to vote them in this weekend.

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Column: I admire Pat Gilroy’s stance. Fair play to him. It’s the kind of principled move we rarely see now. But it won’t make a blind bit of difference. Payments to managers have been commonplace for more than 30 years. Why bother pretending any more? #GAA

Cahair O‘Kane: Pat Gilroy’s principled stand won’t make a blind bit of difference

THIRTY-three years ago this month, the GAA found itself stood in front of the High Court.

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Since 1993, Tyrone clubs have won 27 games in the Ulster Club SFC. 17 of those have been Errigal Ciaran wins (not 16, forgot about their nomination to represent Tyrone in 1995). The Tyrone champions have failed to win the first round game 15 times in 31 seasons #GAA

How much of this 'Tyrone clubs don't do Ulster' lark is just a mindset? Of 25 games since beating Lavey in 1993, Errigal Ciaran have won 16 and drawn three. Their three wins in a month matches the county's tally since 2015. Piece on that and Ruairi Canavan

Ruairi Canavan front and centre as Errigal show why Ulster is their stage

HOW much of this ‘Tyrone clubs don’t do Ulster’ lark is just a mindset?

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