Rory Gallaher's prodigious scoring at the weekend has triggered a search for comparisons. The Fermanagh full forward hit 3-9 against Monaghan in a scoring feat that appears to have been equalled only once in championship football.
Forty two years ago, Dublin forward John Joyce scored 5-3 in a Leinster championship match against Longford. Dublin went on to lose the provincial semi-final to ultimate champions Offaly - a match that featured a missed penalty by former Dublin manager and Team of the Millennium laureate Kevin Heffernan.
Eleven years previously Mayo's Peter Solan came close to the 18-point total with a 5-2 blast against Sligo in the 1949 Connacht championship. Mayo lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Meath who were on the way to a first All-Ireland victory.
Meath's Peter McDermott, who refereed an All-Ireland final within a year of playing in one, had made an impact in the 1947 championship - the final of which was played in New York. Against Wicklow in the Leinster championship he scored 4-2. These matches were played over an hour with a further disadvantage that the old leather balls were less conducive to high scoring, certainly in relation to points.
In recent years Declan Darcy has come close to Gallagher's mark. When playing for Leitrim in the 1997 championship against London in Ruislip, Darcy scored 2-10. The total was scored over a longer period than Gallagher's weekend haul as Leitrim had to go to extra time for the win, and only got that far because Darcy goaled a penalty with the last kick of the match.
Last year's top individual score in the championship was 3-3, scored by Galway full forward Padhraic Joyce in the first-round win over Leitrim. Joyve went on to add 0-10 in the All-Ireland final.
Meanwhile, there is speculation that Laois's redeveloped O'Moore Park is to do a naming rights deal with Puma. Questions have arisen as to whether such an arrangement would be in keeping with Rule 14 of the Official Guide, which states that playing gear has to be of Irish manufacture. In other words if Puma are unable to supply equipment to the GAA, how can they enter into a sponsorship deal with a county board.
The matter has to go before the GAA's management committee for approval. One likely escape route is that Puma are boot manufacturers as well as suppliers of playing gear and that as no Irish company mass produces boots anymore (since the closure of Blackthorn), Puma are as entitled to be in the market as anyone else.
The GAA's 1991 Directive on Sponsorship and Licensing states that the preference for Irish maufacture is subject to the qualification 'where available'.
Currently O'Neill's are the main suppliers of sports gear to the GAA. Their near monopoly makes the business attractive to multi-national companies but in terms of commercial competition, it remains to be seen how lucrative a fractured market would be for the big producers of equipment and sportswear.
