Metamorphosis

Back from a relaxing few days in the west (where there was mercifully little in the way of rain, I'm happy to report), it's time to sort out the immediate future for this blog. As I mentioned the other day, now that the lads have made their exit from this year's Championship, that well and truly buggers things up in terms of raw material on which to report. (How bad things have got so quickly is evidenced by this piece in the Mayo News about an article written by Joe Brolly where he reportedly said that Conoreen is "no good" as a player. Please: is this all we're left to talk about? We all know Brolly is a bollocks - an occasionally insightful and sometimes witty bollocks but a bollocks, nonetheless, and what else, pray tell, does one expect a bollocks to come out with but a pile of, well, bollocks? I rest my case.)

It's definitely time to move on. In my case, prior to putting the blog into dry dock for the winter around early October, it's time for a little bit of metamorphosis. Not the kind that befell poor old Gregor Samsa in Kafka's acclaimed short story of the same title, I hasten to add, though such a fate might be just the job for our friend Mr Brolly. Instead, what I have in mind is to use this forum (as I've been doing to some degree up to now) to discuss the rest of the championship, now that (sniff!) we're out of the running.

So too, of course, are Galway, following their defeat to a resurgent Meath at the weekend and Cork have joined the Royals in the last eight, though a plucky Louth side really made them work for the win. This coming weekend, the quarter-final lineup will be completed (for what it's worth, my money's on Derry and Donegal to make it through) and on Sunday we'll have the draw itself. In other words, the real business of the championship is at last about to get underway.