Bizarre episode from the Kilkenny junior hurling "nal at Nowlan Park last Sunday. During the second half of the match, one of the Danesfort defenders was "attened. The identity of his assailant? Not his marker, not any of the other opposition forwards, not even a space-invading enemy selector or hanger-on. No, the man who landed the blow was actually an umpire.

It's not the "rst time the men in the white coats have taken the law into their own hands, as the former Waterford assistant coach Shane Ahearne will con"rm; he received a clip on the ear from an umpire at the town end in Semple Stadium during the 1998 Munster "nal replay. Looks like it's not only referees, then, who could do with an eye in the back of their head.

(Note to readers: a member of the species Sub-editorus Predictabilus will have appended a headline to this snippet by the time it reaches you. Betcha any money it's something along the lines of the umpire striking back. ) GALVIN NEVER GOING TO WIN POPULARITY VOTE The past week saw the other GPA All Star team being picked, and again, it was a decent selection except for one howler. Around July 2004 we thought we'd never say this but here goes . . . how did Ciaran McDonald manage to get an All Star ahead of Paul Galvin?

McDonald's selection ahead of the Kerry half-forward tells us one of two things. Galvin's tendency to occasionally resort to gamesmanship is not appreciated by his peers and/or a good number of those peers don't get around to seeing a lot of games.

Hence the odd omission of Galvin, and the lack of representation of Donegal and Cork in defence.

Journalists, however, do watch a lot of games. After last year's bizarre football selection in particular, they may have suffered from a credibility deficit and a collective arrogance but they see more games than the players. Shame they didn't incorporate some former and current players and managers into their ranks before the split we have now.

GREAT GAA HEADLINES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN "GAA admit they can learn PR lessons from Aussies' handling of Brendan Fevola incident."

Compiled by Enda McEvoy and Kieran Shannon