Referring to events of this past July he said, "I got a lot of personal criticism. A couple of Sunday newspaper articles that I wasn't happy with. Basically they were lies. I have no problem with constructive criticism but there was one each week, the Sunday after the Munster final and the day of the replay. Full of lies and half-truths, mostly lies, fairly personal stufff What do you do?"

Well whatever he did about another Sunday newspaper's piece the week after the replay, one thing Jack did was phone me, Kieran Shannon, about the piece I wrote the day of the replay. Who was my source, though he had "a bloody good idea" who it was? Did I not know how difficult it was for him trying to coach a team without its inner workings appearing in the paper? "Can we not sit down [for an interview] and do this in a civilised way?" he asked. And that conversation finished amicably, with me predicting Kerry would still make it to the All Ireland final, Jack up for doing an interview with us the week either side of it, and me reasserting that while I would be fair to Jack and to Kerry, I would have to continue to be fair to the Tribune reader too. Not once during our chat did Jack challenge any of the details in the piece. Not once did he accuse us of "lies and half-truths".

Two months later, Jack, what's civilised about sitting down with another paper and implying that this one was engaging in lies, when the reason you called was because you knew we had written too much of the truth?

You'll probably win an All Ireland today, Jack, but . . . not that it means much on days like this . . .

you've lost a little bit of our respect too.

KILKENNY CLEARLY THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
We haven't seen it written or heard it said anywhere this past fortnight.

Forgive us for sounding like one of those pedantic types who revels in writing pointless letters to The Irish Times, but though we've looked and listened, we've yet to hear somebody complain that the real reason Kilkenny won the All Ireland was that, "Ah sure why wouldn't they, sure they don't play football there." (As an aside, they do, at least to some degree; the Kilkenny minor footballers recorded wins against Wexford, Carlow and Longford in the Leinster League this year. ) Which makes you wonder: is it because the great Irish public was happy to see Cork's three-in-a-row bid fail? Sideline Cuts is beginning to suspect so.

IF MAYO LOSE THIS ONE, THEN GIVE TENNIS A GO
Is there something in the air down Villamora way in Portugal when it comes to today's final?

Kerry went to Brown's Fitness Centre in March and guess who went for a stint in June? Yes, Mayo. In fact it got so warm that one of their afternoon sessions was put back to the cool of the evening, allowing some of the players to try their hands at tennis.

Seemingly Ciaran McDonald was particularly adept, which led an observer to comment: "You won't win the All Ireland this year, but there's always Wimbledon."

We'll see.