gaelic-footballers

"The least that you expect from an analyst is that they have an opinion. Neither Duignan or Brennan offered this on The Sunday Game."

"Paddy dashed back towards his goal like a woman who smells a cake burning. The ball won the race and it curled inside the near post as Paddy crashed into the outside of the net and lay against it like a fireman who had returned to find his station ablaze."

"Boris Johnson said this week that he wants to unleash 'The Great British haircut'. Boris, who looks like what Owen Mulligan will in 10 years' time, likes to put 'Great British' or 'Great Britain' before his public pronouncements... Perhaps when Owen Mulligan was running amok against Dublin in the mid-noughties, selling them what Sean Cavanagh would describe as 'The Great UK dummy', a young Boris was watching, marched straight to the barber afterwards and demanded the full Mulligan."

"Then came the opening quarter and there were Smiths and Bradys flying around the place and going full Hezbollah on the idea that they hadn't a hope."

"They have their opponents psychologically smashed."

"I bet you the Dubs are shiteing themselves now. #LouthforUlster #Hartesarmy"

"Jesus you put the phone down for an hour and watch I'm a celebrity get me out of here."

"The Miraculous Medal around his neck is obviously not working all the time anyway."

"I was on the Tyrone senior panel for 13 years trying to get my hands on the Sam Maguire. Mickey Harte arrives on the scene and I leave three years later with two All-Irelands."

"The kid plays with the relaxed air of a scruffy schoolboy messing around with his pals waiting for the bus. One could imagine him playing the entire game with a fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth. Yesterday, he quarter-backed Donegal's victory with a simply awesome display, delivering the ball to all parts of the field as if by remote control, leaving Armagh players scampering around like dogs chasing aeroplanes."

"And I was very annoyed to hear Pat Spillane going on about that again recently, saying that about this Sligo team, that we were waving to the crowd. Sure Pat Spillane was a great footballer, but he can be very insulting as well, to a lot of counties."

"Clifford and his colleagues could have a field day. I don't give Cork a prayer against Kerry."

""[A] great man for the Mars bars and a packet of Smarties."

"For the second week in a row, Kieran Donaghy was better dressed in the studio than Jimmy McGuinness and Peter Canavan wasn't."

"Colm O'Rourke as co-commentator during the first half of the 1992 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, when McHugh's scapular broke through his jersey and flapped loosely in the breeze (erroneously referred to by O'Rourke as "his Miraculous Medal")."

""Now we know the secret of reaching an All-Ireland final. Eat eight meals a day," joked Michael Lyster. Many months ago, Donegal manager Jim McGuinness saw midfielder Rory Kavanagh as one of his key men, but felt he was too light. In order to bulk up, Jim asked him to eat eight meals a day."

"For the second week in a row, Kieran Donaghy was better dressed in the studio than Jimmy McGuinness and Peter Canavan wasn't."

"It is a fact widely known that Kieran McGeeney's teams do not perform in championship. This tradition continued at Breffni Park yesterday, with Donegal playing a virtually perfect game."

"From the age of eight or nine my mother had me washing dishes on a biscuit tin at the Holyrood."

"The wife is snoring in the background so apologies for that."

""[A] great man for the Mars bars and a packet of Smarties."

"Brian was on the phone constantly, even ringing the hotel to make sure I was doing a spot of training."

"There are people who go to the Hague for war crimes – I tell you this, some of the coaches nowadays should be up for crimes against Gaelic football."

"That's the end of my free dinners in Cavan!"

"For the second week in a row, Kieran Donaghy was better dressed in the studio than Jimmy McGuinness and Peter Canavan wasn't. Last weekend, Kieran gave a detailed analysis of a sending off he hadn't seen."

"Brian was on the phone constantly, even ringing the hotel to make sure I was doing a spot of training."

"Tomás Ó Sé is a pundit, he is not appointed or elected by anybody to question anybody... He is just promoting his own agenda, to promote himself as a pundit. That's what all this is about. What Tomás Ó Sé is at is unforgivable and I think he should consider his position as a pundit when he is prepared to condemn lesser people and ask 'does it suit us'."

"Very disappointing that Sligo have pulled out of the championship... Longford and Leitrim have had issues... the integrity of the competition is being questioned now. Why is it all weaker counties that seem to be in bother with this, does it suit them?"

"Barry McGowan. Now he was an example of a really great footballer who was totally unheralded. For me, he was as good as Tony Scullion. He was in that mould."

"Brolly could cause a riot in a convent."

"Boys talking through their arses on TSG. It was a superb goal. The hip nudge to put Walsh off balance. The catch. The lightning fast, deft finish. The perfect timing."

"Joe Brolly is a person in pain."

"Media coverage of the tweet"

"Och, he knows what I think of him – I've said it before."

"Great second half by Cavan. Always had a soft spot for the county ever since Pat Faulkner kicked me up in the air & Joe Dillon caught me over his head in the 1987 Ulster club semi final v Kingscourt."

"I used to think you were an awful shite."

"And where in the country would you get anyone like Anthony Lynch, a warrior and a Gaeilgeoir? If my daughter said she was going to marry him I'd go down on my knees and thank the Lord. No dowry would be too large for the Lynch family."

"'What do people see in Canty?' a Kerry man texted me at half-time [of the 2011 Munster final]. 'I don't know' was my response. In fairness, Kerry people are very harsh judges of a footballer. Someone like Graham, whose strengths are his physique, athleticism and never-say-die attitude, underwhelms them. They have that in Kerry, but on top of that they have the skills. Graham does not."

"I asked one board member this week how much [Derry manager] Rory Gallagher is being paid. He said 'I don't ask, I don't want to know'. 'How is he being paid?' 'I don't know. As I said, I don't ask'. As part of the package, Rory is driving a sponsored 5 series BMW from JKC Motors. A Fermanagh man, or is it Cavan, or Antrim, I cannot put my finger on it, he was appointed by the previous board on the basis that he was a 'top rank professional manager'."

"In Derry, the board is currently in serious discussions about whether to enter a senior team into next year's championship... if Derry had not fielded a team in league or championship over the last five years, our absence would have been as memorable as Kilkenny's footballers... In a small dual county, in a vain bid to keep up with the Joneses, we have been spending over £45,000 a month on our senior teams... What has all this expenditure bought us? To Division 4. And now, Division 3 mid-table mediocrity."

"Tommy Walsh is a one-trick pony – if he gets the ball 40 yards from goal and you stay close to him he'll barge past you and head for goal, but if you stand off him and wait for him to come onto his left then he won't do any damage... Walsh doesn't have the speed of thought or foot to deal with proper, logical defending."

"Boris Johnson said this week that he wants to unleash 'The Great British haircut'. Boris, who looks like what Owen Mulligan will in 10 years' time, likes to put 'Great British' or 'Great Britain' before his public pronouncements... Perhaps when Owen Mulligan was running amok against Dublin in the mid-noughties, selling them what Sean Cavanagh would describe as 'The Great UK dummy', a young Boris was watching, marched straight to the barber afterwards and demanded the full Mulligan."

"Yes, I visibly propelled Michael Murphy into the air to catch that ball. My ability to deliver an All-Ireland to the highest bidder! I am a powerful man and people should be afraid."

"The great Barry, the great unheralded maestro of Donegal football..."

"The world has increasingly become like the Rose of Tralee... We're either interested in the truth and in the facts of things or we're in Rose of Tralee world where no-one says anything and where, for example, RTÉ apologise because you and I took an entirely fair, but robust view of Barry McGuigan. I mean, apologising? And, of course, everybody knows the apology is false as well. Everybody knows, 'Well that's a false apology, obviously McGuigan has rung up to complain about this, the wee shite that he is'."

"For the second week in a row, Kieran Donaghy was better dressed in the studio than Jimmy McGuinness and Peter Canavan wasn't. Last weekend, Kieran gave a detailed analysis of a sending off he hadn't seen."

"I got a warning... It said at 11 minutes past three on the day of the drawn All-Ireland Final you said to Pat Spillane, and it was put into quotes, 'Would you stop patting my arm?' 'This was grossly unprofessional and rude and cannot be tolerated'. I kid you not. I was also told that Joanne Cantwell had lost confidence in my abilities as an analyst."

"American presidents come and go. Dublin endure. Their annual Leinster Championship run has become the easiest campaign in Irish life after the Healy-Raes', with more discipline."

"The one real anomaly in the League is The Black Death... They have continued to play the most horrible, defensive football the game has ever seen, oblivious to the trend towards attack based, non fouling football."

"It is a fact widely known that Kieran McGeeney's teams do not perform in championship. This tradition continued at Breffni Park yesterday, with Donegal playing a virtually perfect game."