Our hearts go out to one Brian Whitlow, a resident of San Francisco, who was moved to take up hurling after seeing it on television. Reality soon bit, alas; he rarely managed to win possession in training, and when he did try tearing off on a solo run he never made it more than a few steps before the sliotar was knocked away.

After being substituted in one match, he quit. There ended an unlikely love affair.

This information comes courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, which recently ran a feature on the slow death of hurling in the US. New York has lost four of its eight teams in the past three years, while northern California has had only two since the demise of the out"t in San Jose. In order to ensure their readers had a handle on this abstruse pursuit, the WSJ described hurling as "a sport with elements of "eld hockey and lacrossef To many Americans, hurling is just a slang term for vomiting. Once they learn it's a sport, they often confuse it with curling."

Maybe that was Brian Whitlow's mistake.

MOANING WON'T MAKE THEM HANG AROUND

Brendan Murphy is the latest to cause concern. The Carlow minor star will head to Australia in November and join the Brisbane Lions, bringing to six the number of former GAA players making their living in the AFL. Rumour has it that it's going to get worse too with Australian clubs holding a joint week-long recruitment camp down under in October, to which the cream of Ireland's young players will be invited.

This rather that the International Rules Series will be top of the agenda when the two sides meet later this year but already those at this end have been moaning about the poaching of their players. But with a life in the sun as a professional athlete on offer, why should players stay? Instead of complaining it's about time the GAA did something a little more proactive rather than whine about the opposition.

NEW WEBSITE COULD BE JUST THE TICKET

Clever idea we received a letter about during the week concerning All Ireland hurling and football "nal "nal tickets. Basically a website (hurlingtickets. com) is connecting fans from every parish and club all over the world in order to exchange tickets for the Liam McCarthy Cup and Sam Maguire deciders. It allows people to sit where they want and if you're part of a family, to get tickets sitting together by exchange. All details are on the website, but what's the betting there aren't too many Cork IP addresses logging in by this evening.