Gaelic Games

Abbey CBS paid tribute to the late Jody Gormley as they won the MacRory Cup for the first time in 20 years as they beat St Patrick's, Dungannon 0-12 to 0-8 in the replayed final at the Athletic Grounds.

Tyrone legend Gormley, who passed away from cancer in 2024, coached Abbey CBS to their last MacRory success and the school carried a tribute to their former coach on their kit.

The Newry outfit fought back from nine points down on Sunday to score an injury-time equaliser that forced the replay.

It was a much more tame affair second time round, but Abbey, aided by six points from Diarmuid O'Rourke, secured the four-point victory.

St Pat's started brightly and scored two early points before Abbey fought back to lead 0-6 to 0-2 at the break in Armagh.

The Tyrone school registered the first two points of the second half to move back within two points, but Abbey rattled off three in a row to rack up a five-point advantage.

It proved too big a gap for St Pat's, who managed three late points before Daniel McKernan landed the final score of the game with a fisted point in added time to seal the win for Abbey.

Image source, Inpho

Two-time Clare All-Ireland winner Jamesie O'Connor says it will be "so hard" for Tipperary to retain the Liam McCarthy Cup.

Tipp claimed a 29th All-Ireland title and their first since 2019 with a 3-27 to 1-18 final win against Cork in last year's Croke Park final.

But O'Connor believes that Limerick, who won four in a row from 2020-2023, are the early frontrunners to win the biggest prize in hurling, even without five-time All-Ireland winner Seamus Flanagan in the panel.

"Limerick are possibly everyone's favourites at the minute," he told the GAA Social podcast.

"They were beaten by a point by Dublin last year and by Cork the year before, they haven't gone away and you'll imagine there will be a hunger there that the clock is ticking for that bunch.

"He [John Kiely] has freshened up the panel and I'm really surprised Seamus Flanagan was dropped.

"We have spoken to him and his mindset, he was ready to really commit and make a real big effort. Whoever is going to win it will have to beat Limerick along the way."

O'Connor also tipped his native Clare to be in the running to reclaim the title they won in 2024, if they can keep players like Shane O'Donnell, Diarmuid Ryan and Conor Cleary fit for the full campaign.

"I don't think Clare will be a million miles away, if they can stay injury free," he added.

"Last year O'Donnell missed most of the championship, Diarmuid Ryan was missing, and Conor Clearly was out for big games.

"Liam Cahill would probably still say the game in Ennis where Tipp held off Clare [in the Munster SHC] was massive in that it gave them the belief they could go on and win [the All-Ireland title].

"Clare won't be far away but I just think Tipp haven't done it before [retaining the All-Ireland title] and he's got huge talent coming through which will keep boys on their toes, but it's so hard to go back-to-back, they mightn't even get out of Munster or they could win it."

On the podcast, O'Connor also talks about his career, the furor around Cork hurling and his move into punditry.

Image source, Getty Images

Armagh captain Aidan Forker says his headbutting incident with Michael Murphy on the Donegal forward's return last year was a "silly act".

In February 2025, Murphy made his first inter-county appearance in 981 days as a second-half substitute in the Allianz Football League fixture.

Moments after Murphy's introduction, the pair found themselves in a pushing match before the Armagh captain headbutted Murphy in the chest and was sent off.

"There's no explaining it, really. It was a silly act and a rush of blood, or whatever you want to say," Forker said on the GAA Social podcast.

"It's on me. I'll take responsibility and it was silly, but it's well gone now at this stage."

Forker said it was "in the moment" and he remained off social media for six weeks, but his wife, Eimear, struggled with seeing abuse sent in the direction of the Armagh captain.

"It was a silly thing to do, it looked silly and there was a bit of aftermath there," he said.

"Apparently I took a lot of abuse online, and Eimear really struggled with that. I just walked off the pitch and didn't see any of the coverage. It is what it is, no one got hurt so it's fine."

No date on return from injury

Forker had surgery on his ankle in the inter-county off season and has been managing a back issue, so did not feature in the McKenna Cup or Armagh's opening league games - a win over Moaghan and a narrow loss to Galway.

The 33-year-old said his "body is generally feeling good" but he is not putting a time frame on his return to action.

"The hunger is still there to keep going," Forker said.

"I'm determined to get back, the boys are flying and I want to be part of that again.

"I usually like putting numbers on things but I haven't with us, I'm just going by how my body feels.

"I'm not saying it's going to be three, six or 12 weeks, I'm just going by how I feel."

Forker said he was always talking to Kieran McGeeney about his return, but the Armagh manager wasn't putting any pressure on him to rush his recovery.

"Last year I wasn't feeling myself and I was probably lying to myself.

"I wasn't useful last year, I wasn't myself physically. I wasn't doing anyone a service.

"The itch is still there but you have to listen to your body.

"Hopefully I'm on the right track and over the worst of it."

Stay up to date with all the latest GAA news and reports here.

Image source, Inpho

Donegal manager Jim McGuinness confirmed "it wasn't a difficult conversation" to convince Michael Murphy to return to county colours for 2026.

The 36-year-old came out of a two-year retirement for the 2025 campaign and played a crucial role in Donegal's run to the All-Ireland final and Ulster title success.

Murphy has not played since the defeat by Kerry at Croke Park last July, but returned in the second half for his team's Division One win over the Kingdom in Ballyshannon on Sunday.

"He had a surgery after the final and we've been trying to manage him and build him up from that," McGuinness told reporters after the game.

"It's been a long enough road since that. He didn't manage to play for his club in the club championship, and he's been building up, so it's great to have him back on the pitch.

"He was looking forward to that today, to get some type of a run out, and hopefully we can build his minutes in the in the weeks and months ahead."

With two wins from their opening fixtures, the Donegal boss was satisfied with his team's work and felt there were "a lot of positives in the first half in particular".

It is still very early in the new season and McGuinness reiterated his stance that he will use the league to "develop depth within the squad".

With football taking a back seat next weekend, the Donegal boss has two weeks to prepare his side for a home game against Mayo and hopes to build on their winning start.

"There's things to work on to be honest, but at the same time, it felt sort of comfortable enough for most of it (against Kerry), he added.

"It gives us four points, which is the most important thing of all. We can sort of now start to look at different things and different scenarios and more game time for different people as well.

"It's the second league game and we will focus now on Mayo. That will be a really interesting game, and a really good challenge for us. It's a home game as well.

"We only have three home games so we will have to try and see can we make that one count as well."

Odhran Crumley
BBC Sport NI Journalist

Image source, Inpho

Armagh boss Kieran McGeeney is expecting Galway to visit the Athletic Grounds looking to "lay down a marker" in Saturday's Division One clash between the 2024 All-Ireland finalists [17:00 GMT].

The Orchard County opened their league campaign with an eye-catching 12-point win over Monaghan at Clones, scoring 1-27 with 11 different players registering scores.

In contrast, Galway were beaten 3-18 to 2-18 at home by Connacht rivals Mayo in their opener.

Saturday's game is a repeat of McGeeney's crowning victory as manager of his native county when they beat the Tribesmen in the 2024 All-Ireland final to bring Sam Maguire back to Armagh for only the second time.

"It'll be a tough game too, games between ourselves and Galway, there's never much between us, it's always a point either way and they'll be coming to the Athletic Grounds to lay down a marker. We know what's in front of us," said McGeeney.

"I'm happy with the performance [against Monaghan], again I thought we probably had three or four goal chances that we didn't either put over the bar or we missed, but there's still a lot to work on as well."

McKay unlikely to feature

Early points on the board, especially from an away fixture, will aid the Orchard cause as every county strives to secure their place in the top tier for next season.

The turnaround between league and championship will be quicker for Armagh as they will face neighbours Tyrone in the preliminary round of the Ulster Championship.

"I don't know if there's much freedom, it's Galway next and they're going to be hungry for points, so every game counts, and score difference counts too as we found out in the past to our detriment," McGeeney continued.

"Galway are always a big game. I'm sure they'll bring plenty as well. Every game you play in Division One, everybody knows my feelings on it, I think it should be expanded and not reduced."

McGeeney also confirmed that Armagh are likely to be without full-back Aaron McKay against Galway after he was withdrawn before the throw-in last weekend.

"Aaron hurt his hand, so we're hoping it'll only be a couple of weeks.

"Just at this time of the year, it's such a compact season, you don't want to be taking chances and probably be pushing bigger injuries further down the line, so we're hoping maybe not next [against Galway], but the week after he'll be fit for it."