'Taggy' has made just six championship appearances, making his debut in 2004 when coming on as a sub the day Michael Jacob plunged a late winning goal in to the Canal End net. His first 'start' was against Dublin in the subsequent qualifiers and then injury interrupted his career before he won his way back onto the first 15 for last year's All Ireland quarterfinal.

He was taken off that day too, as he was in the semi-final - and against Offaly this year too.

When you consider there are men who have hurled for their counties for over a decade without even sampling All Ireland final day, like Tony Browne (38 caps), Paul Flynn (37) and Ken McGrath (36), Fogarty's feat is all the more unique.

WHISTLING HURLERS ON THE PITCH Babs Keating was at it again last week. Having gone underground after Tipperary's defeat to Limerick, he re-emerged on Tipp FM on Monday querying the ability of the match referee, inferring that the man had never played inter-county hurling.

Wrong, Babs. Seanie McMahon (of Newmarket-onFergus, not to be confused with his Doora-Barefield namesake) lined out at midfield on a Clare team that beat your beloved Tipperary in the 1986 Munster semi-final.

However the comment moved us to pick a whistling hurlers' team, and you had to go way back to locate men who have both hurled and refereed at the highest level.

Nine of our 15 both hurled and refereed in an All Ireland final, with Vin Baston having the unique distinction of having acted as the referee in the 1945 final before hurling in the 1948 decider.

Fourteen of our team hurled in an All Ireland final, while Clare's Jimmy Smith played and refereed in Munster finals.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE MUNSTER GOALS GONE?

When Kerry and Cork served up a goal bonanza in Croke Park in 2002, you had to go back 19 years for the last time an All Ireland semi-final had produced more goals. Then, six months after that goalfest, on the opening night of the 2003 league, Cork blitzed their neighbours for four goals while Declan O'Sullivan marked his inter-county debut with a consolation goal.

But since that first game under the floodlights at P�irc U� Rinn, CorkKerry has gone all goal-shy. In their six subsequent championship games, there have been only three goals, while in their four league clashes, there have also been only three. That's 700 minutes of football, and only six goals. Five of the games had no goal at all.

For the record, Cork have actually outgoaled their neighbours in that time, 4-2. However, they have won only two of those games, while Kerry have won seven and drawn one.

In fact Kerry have won three of those last four league meetings without scoring a goal.

The edge is that over those 10 games, they've scored 33 points more than Cork. In all, they've scored 2-124 to Cork's 4-91. That's 130 points to 103, or, on average 13 points to 10.

BETCHA DON'T KNOW THIS NOW Who was the last inter-county hurling referee to play in a senior inter-county hurling All Ireland final?

Answer If G wrong, though you've got the right casub in the 1985 All Ireland final, ando L " AIDAN FOGARTY'S SHC RECORD Year Position Stage Opponent Scored On-off 2004 Sub Leinster s-"nal Wexford 0-0 Came on 13 Quali"er Dublin 0-0 Taken 2006 15 All Ireland q-"nal Galway 1-0 Taken off 15 All Ireland s-"nal Clare 0-0 Taken off 15 All Ireland "nal Cork 1-3 Full game 2007 15 Leinster s-"nal Offaly 0-2 Taken off