Ah here, that was a stellar Sunday, the only glitch BBC Northern Ireland cutting BBC2’s London marathon coverage short by taking over to bring us the Donegal v Down championship game. That in itself was no bad thing at all, but it just meant we missed out on the stragglers rolling in a few hours after Tigst Assefa and Sebastian Sawe crossed the winning line, which is always the best bit. Especially when Andrew Cotter is taking the mickey out of them, him being his usual magnificent self, while Steve Cram emotes about, say, a man in a traffic cone trying to break the world record for the fastest marathon run by a man in a traffic cone. And that was the problem with BBC Northern Ireland’s takeover – we never found out if world records for the fastest marathon dressed as a rotating puzzle cube, a three-dimensional plant, a lollipop lady, a subcutaneous defibrillator, a traffic cone and a vegetable had been set. (Note: These were six separate runners, not the one). And then there was the attempt to break the “most underpants worn during a marathon” mark. READ MORE By full-time in Clones, Philly McMahon was possibly in need of several layers of underpants himself. “Philly,” said Mark Sidebottom. “I want to bring you some really big breaking news from Portlaoise. Half-time: Meath 17 points, Dublin five.” “Jesus,” Philly muttered, before turning to Oisín McConville and Conor McManus in the hope that their faces would reveal that Mark was jesting. “April Fool’s?” he asked, with hope in his heart. No. By full-time, when Meath had seen off the Dubs for the first time in 15 years, a Clones call might well have been put out for a subcutaneous defibrillator. No stoppin’ Donegal, though. “Is genius too big a word to be using here?” Mark asked Oisín of Jim McGuinness. Oisín couldn’t really find a reason for why it might be inappropriate, Jimmy’s ability to keep a large panel of highly useful players content, even when not inserting them in his starting line-up, a particular skill. “He has a pride of lions there and they all don’t get to have a first nibble at the wildebeest,” said Mark, “but somehow he keeps them happy.” Waterford, meanwhile, dined on Clare in the Munster hurling championship, Dónal Óg Cusack most exercised by that moment Clare’s Adam Hogan plunged to the ground after a brush with Dessie Hutchinson. “Bullshit,” he said, “Adam went down as if he was hurt, the only one who would have been really worried was his mother.” And Cork saw off Tipperary, the game perfectly calm until the ref dished out a red card for an incident that happened, well, before it actually started. “Oh my word,” as Darragh Maloney put it when Darragh McCarthy was sent for one of the earliest baths in the history of sport, Michael Duignan fearing it would end the contest as a spectacle. He wasn’t entirely wrong. Still, is there a more sparkling sight in sport this weather than Cork forwards bearing down on goal? They’re really quite good. Mind you, the panel had a heated discussion about whether there was a touch too much hype about this Cork side, Dónal Óg shouldering Henry Shefflin off the gantry when he suggested as much. But both were in agreement that the skill levels in today’s game are soaring roofwards. “Last night I was at home watching the 1981 All-Ireland final between Galway and Offaly,” said Dónal Óg. “You might think I should have better things to be doing on a Saturday night [well …], but ...” He doffed his cap to the skills of the 1981 lads, but “we are living in a golden age in terms of the skill level”. Henry and Liam Sheedy couldn’t disagree. “Imagine being us,” today’s hurlers might well boast, instead that was a banner that appeared on The Kop on Sunday afternoon when Liverpool wrapped up the Premier League title. Spare a thought for Gary Neville. No, do. Having watched Manchester United soar to 14th in the table with their draw against Bournemouth earlier in the day, he then had to turn up for hellish duty at Anfield, no doubt imagining by then that there’s no such thing as heaven. The Victoria Cross is awarded for conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy. Expect Gaz to appear at Buckingham Palace some day soon to collect his gong.