On Gaelic Games: It was at the All-Ireland football lunch in 1994 that then GAA president Jack Boothman, indulging his flair for pointed humour, advised Dublin and Down team managers Pat O'Neill and Peter McGrath to be careful when they took their holidays the next year, writes Seán Moran
This was a reference to the recently deposed Eamonn Coleman, who had managed Derry to the previous season's All-Ireland. He was in the US when the county board decided to get rid of him despite his most evident failing being an inability to beat the Down team that had succeeded Derry as champions in a first round in Ulster that became widely known as the match of the decade, an accolade not many wanted to revise by the end of the 1990s, back in the Russian-roulette, pre-qualifier age.
But that's what happens in these days when everything from falling leaves to the reopening of the schools and declining light points to the conclusion of the season.
All-Irelands are in the air, and like the British government spinmeister who claimed - a little too publicly for the purposes of discretion - that the day of the queen mother's death would be a good day to bury bad news, county boards know the attention of the country exclusively drifts towards big matches and allows controversial decisions to be aired.
It's a time of the year that's about winners, with brief nods to whoever loses quarter-finals and semi-finals, but the keynote is looking forward to the next match.
With the focus so intensely on the field, other events struggle to gain attention unless they're negative, like the desperate misfortune suffered by Kilkenny's JJ Delaney, whose damaged cruciate ligament keeps him out of the All-Ireland final in 11 days' time.
This week the Merriman summer school has as its theme the centenary of the death of GAA founder Michael Cusack, which falls next November. It's a welcome retrospective for a figure whose historical profile is more than slightly ambiguous because of a difficult personality that led to him being dropped as general secretary although his energy had been the instrumental force behind the early association.
Coincidentally, the local GAA in Clare also has some pondering to do. One item of news that crept out over the weekend concerned the stepping down of county hurling manager Anthony Daly. Needless to say, he wasn't dismissed or even pushed but had simply decided the time had come.
Daly hardly needs elaborate tributes. His track record is eloquent enough. There was a clear line of two years' retirement between his playing career and the move into management but it was impossible when news of his retirement emerged not to think of his contribution as one distinguished continuum from his youthful playing debut through to last Sunday week's last tilt against the odds.
When a former player as iconic as Daly finds himself being targeted as an obvious managerial appointment, such is the sweep of expectation and faith that it becomes nearly impossible to avoid.
The closest parallel would have been Jimmy Barry-Murphy's appointment in Cork 11 years ago, but at least JBM had experienced some All-Ireland management success with the minors. Yet it was the same sense of sacrifice, a suspicion that Barry-Murphy and Daly might have been better off waiting a while.
But the sense of yearning was too strong and they accepted.
Their initial championship experiences were also similar: unexpected and savage thrashings by Limerick and Waterford, in 1996 and 2004 respectively. There were no qualifiers to help Cork recover 10 years ago, but eventually it all came right for the team, and Barry-Murphy added the Liam MacCarthy Cup in his fourth year, but not before taking plenty of abuse for the failures that paved his road to enlightenment.
Yet that was that. JBM was able to move on in 2000 and already the county has moved on to a new chapter with two more All-Irelands.
Daly knew when he took over that Clare don't flick through chapters that quickly and that in statistical terms the two All-Irelands he lifted as captain might well have to do the county for a long, long time.
There was no assembly line of proven talent coming through and Daly had to improvise. He didn't have a magic formula and he knew it.
"Doubt myself?" he said reflecting on the Waterford disaster. "I doubted everything. Doubted this was happening. Doubted everything I knew. Doubted the lads. Doubted the whole lot. Jesus, that hit hard. It was like a death in the family."
What he managed to do was prolong the careers of some of his former colleagues. James O'Connor explained before the fateful match with Waterford two years ago the impact of the new manager.
"Sure when Anthony Daly is at the other end of the phone it's hard to say no. I mean we've so much respect for him. It's still a little harder to get motivated with the family commitments but you know as well you'll be on the outside looking in for long enough. And I know there's only one place I'd rather be on May 16th. And it isn't in the stands."
One of his selectors was Fr Harry Bohan, who had with Justin McCarthy - ironically Waterford's 2004 manager - taken Clare close to championship success in the 1970s. His admiration for the manager was plain.
"I mean, the respect for Anthony Daly would be something incredible and his commitment to this Clare team means a lot to the players," said Fr Bohan.
Armed with this respect and a facility to improve through the summer, he never managed a championship win but left Clare an established top-four team. And at a cost to himself.
The pressure he was under would have buckled lesser men. Not alone did it exert stress on him as he tried to get the last ounce out of his limited resources but it destroyed his relationship with the 1990s manager Ger Loughnane, whose blunt and abrasive public criticisms Daly took with dignity and forbearance.
But that was the road he felt duty bound to travel. Everyone who knows him will wish Anthony Daly time and space to enjoy his personal and family life.
