HURLING'S FINEST DAY
Hurling has hardly enjoyed a better day than Sunday as Kilkenny and Tipp produced a match that manifested all the greatness of the game. It was appropriate, too, that a top quality minor match set the scene and while underage success guarantees nothing, the talent displayed by Mattie Murphy's men was very encouraging.

Murphy has turned out a succession of magnificent Galway minor teams and his observation that Sunday's is probably the best squad of players is noteworthy. The standard produced by Tipp and Kilkenny would suggest that all pretenders have a big gap to bridge before they can compete on that level.

Tipp should have wrapped it up but their upward progress has moved significantly this year and the task facing John McIntyre and his men next season is clear to see. The focus will now switch to the club scene with Portumna the first of many do-or-die encounters this weekend as they bid to become the first side in either code to complete three All-Ireland club titles in a row.

All sports have been hammered by the loss of sponsorship this year and the Galway Races became the latest victims this week with William Hill withdrawing as the main backers of the Plate. Management in Ballybrit have succeeded in shoring up the loss of other smaller sponsors but it will not be easy finding a company with the resources to cough up the money for the €250,000 race.

The loss of 18-year old jockey Jamie Kyne from Kiltrogue in that terrible fire in England at the weekend has left a community shocked and in mourning. The Turloughmore-Lackagh-Claregalway area has produced many fine sportspeople over the decades and it has a rich equestrian history.

By all accounts Jamie, a champion boxer with Monivea BC and a handy hurler with Turlough, seemed destined to go all the way as a jockey.

The senseless circumstances surrounding his death must multiply the level of grief for his heartbroken family and friends.

Galway's new football manager, expected to be Joe Kernan, should be announced tonight and he will get a good flavour of the talent out there if he comes to Tuam Stadium on Sunday for the county football semi-finals when Salthill/Knocknacarra take on Corofin and Caltra meet Mountbellew/Moylough.

THEY SAID IT: 'Kevin Keegan and I have 63 international caps between us. He has 63 of them' — Scotland boss Craig Brown ahead of a clash with an England side managed by Keegan.

IT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY: 9th September 1975: Martina Navratilova defected from Czechoslovakia to America and went on to 18 grand slam singles titles and 31 double titles. She had her Czech citizienship restored in January last year but the 52-year old continues to live in Florida having won over $21m in a professional career that ran from 1875 to 2006.

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