Mary Hannigan’s A to Z of the sporting year

All Blacks

We waited 111 years for Ireland's first victory over New Zealand, now we have two in two years. It's becoming a habit. "As of now Ireland are the number one team in the world, so that result makes them favourites for the World Cup," said a, eh, generous Steve Hansen after the game. No pressure, then.

Bomber

Eoin Liston took a flight from Cardiff to Cork with a bunch of pals, one of whom tried to attract his attention by hollering "BOMBER!" Never a good idea on a plane. An alarmed air hostess had a word with the pilot. It was only when they Googled the Kerry legend's nickname that they felt safe to continue the flight.

Cranberries

As if winning the All-Ireland hurling title for the first time in 45 years wasn't emotional enough for Limerick and their followers, there followed the mother of all sing-alongs when The Cranberries' Dreams blasted through the Croke Park speakers. Not a dry eye in the house.

Dubs

There's no stopping the men and women of Dublin when it comes to this All-Ireland-football-title-collecting business. The women beat Cork in a final for the first time, the men saw off Tyrone to complete their four-in-a-row. And there was never any doubt about the result. When Mickey Harte gathered his players in to a huddle on the pitch at half-time, Colm O'Rourke suspected he was looking for divine intervention. "I'd say it was the first decade of the Rosary they started there."

Connacht and Ulster make four changes apiece for Sportsground showdown

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Mikey Johnston on the double as Celtic extend lead at top of table

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Ole Gunnar Solskjær: That’s the Paul Pogba I know

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Eamon

After 40 years of punditing Dunphy parted ways with RTÉ, the summer’s World Cup his swansong. “Why don’t Saudi Arabia throw the kitchen sink at Uruguay? They don’t have a kitchen sink – only a dishcloth.” We will, you’d suspect, never see his like again.

Fernando

“I got a call from work and they said, ‘you’re a celebrity’. That’s how I found out that I was dead. But basically, I’m not dead.” After all those moments of silence it turned out Fernando Nuno La-Fuente was alive and kicking, Ballybrack going to exceptional lengths to have their Leinster League game against Arklow called off by declaring him deceased. Today FM’s Dermot and Dave penned a tune in the fella’s honour: “You’re the Lazarus of Ballybrack, we’re so glad you’re back, Fernando . . .”

Grand Slam

"We had Christy Moore in on Monday and he was fantastic. And he sang Ordinary Man at one stage. They are ordinary men who are an extraordinary team who delivered exceptional deeds." – Joe Schmidt doffing his cap to his players after that win at Twickenham completed the perfect Six Nations campaign.

Hockey

Ireland’s women, ranked 15th out of the 16 competing nations, reached the World Cup final, which was watched by a peak audience of 439,100 live on RTÉ. If we live forever we’re unlikely to see another Irish sporting story quite like it.

Interminable

It might actually only have taken around three seconds for the ball to travel from Jonathan Sexton’s boot to over the bar in Paris back in February for that match-winning drop goal, Dave McIntyre hollering “It’s spinning, IT’S SPINNING!!” all the while, but it felt like an eternity. Magical.

Jacob

The Stockdale man was named player of the Six Nations after scoring a record seven tries in Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning campaign, and finished off his year rather nicely by scoring the only try of the game in the victory over New Zealand. The secret to his success? Lego. It helps him unwind before a big game, apparently. “Most recently, I built the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. It actually took about seven hours, it was a lot more effort than I expected. I just love it.” If the Lego people were wise, they’d sign him up for a few ads.

K err-isms

Probably the only person to run Luka Modric close for the man of the tournament award: Brian Kerr. "Stefan Milinkovic-Savic – that's only one bloke"; "The way Argentina played in their first two games they wouldn't have beaten Lourdes Celtic"; "Meza has had three touches since he came on – they've been bad, brutal and worse"; "He once shaved off his beard and made his brother a fishing fly out of it. His brother plays handball for Iceland."

Lightweights

But only according to the scales – heavyweights in every other sense. That’d be Katie and Kellie, Taylor and Harrington. The former remains unbeaten in her professional career, winning all four of her 2018 fights and adding the IBF Lightweight title to the WBA belt she had won the year before. And Harrington struck gold in India to become world champion.

Mullinalaghta

A story like few others in 2018, Gary Rogers the hero with a late penalty in their entirely improbable Leinster Final victory over Kilmacud Crokes. "I just said 'I'll hit it as hard as I can and if he saves it, fair play to him."

Netherlands (and Germany)

Mick McCarthy briefly turned a whiter shade of pale when the Republic of Ireland were drawn in the same group as the Dutch and Germans for the Euro 2020 qualifiers. But it was Michael O’Neill who was left looking a bit ghostly when the rule was clarified: no more than two host countries can compete in the same group, so Northern Ireland got the Netherlands and Germany instead. Unlucky.

Ouch

There was no shortage of wars of words between pundits and managers through the year, but one of the tastiest was the battle between Eamonn Fitzmaurice, who stepped down as Kerry manager in August, and Pat Spillane. Fitzmaurice might well have landed the knockout blow: "[Pat] reminds me a bit of Donald Trump. He has a huge ego, he understands how the media works and he's good for a soundbite to keep himself relevant. But, personally speaking, I wouldn't have him within a million miles of a Kerry team."

Perseverance

Mourneabbey had lost the 2014, 2015 and 2017 All-Ireland Club football finals, but if at first you don’t succeed, you know yourself. “What was different this time,” player of the match Doireann O’Sullivan was asked after they had beaten Foxrock-Cabinteely. “We were sick of losing, we just said enough is enough.” So they decided to win.

Quaid

It was a glorious year for Limerick's hurlers, but their journey would have ended back in July if it wasn't for that stunning Nickie Quaid save against Cork in the 72nd minute of their semi-final when the teams were level. Limerick, of course, went on to win in extra time. US magazine Sports Illustrated even picked it out as their "sports highlight of the weekend". "You can't really call yourself a sports fan if you don't appreciate this play," they said.

Rhys

Until August most of us might have thought a Magyar was a person you’d find in Hungary, but then we watched Rhys McClenaghan performing the move on his way to becoming European champion on the pommel horse. There was a Triple Russian, a Stockli and a Sivado in there too. By the end of his routine there was nothing we didn’t know about gymnastics.

Sequel

After the departure of Martin O'Neill and Roy Keane, it was a case of the Second Coming: Mick McCarthy was back in the job. How has he changed since last time? "I've certainly lost some hair. Got older. Wiser, I think. I've a bit more perspective on life. I tend not to fall out with everybody as quickly as I did before." We'll just hope he isn't bald by the time he hands over to Stephen Kenny.

Taxi

"This is an emergency, I'm playing in the World Cup final!" It was a fare like no other for the London cabbie who drove Emily Beatty to the other side of the city to link up with the squad after she got a late call-up to play in that day's World Cup hockey final.

Unprecedented

It was a memorable year for so many of Ireland's young athletes, Sarah Healy, Rhasidat Adeleke and Sophie O'Sullivan all winning medals at the European Youth Championships, and Sommer Lecky taking silver in the high jump at the U20s World Championships. Up there with the best was a remarkable performance in that U20s championships by the 4x100m relay team of Molly Scott, Gina Akpe-Moses, Ciara Neville and Patience Jumbo-Gula, the quartet finishing second to win Ireland's first-ever relay medal at that level.

Vintage

After, well, a dominant display in the single sculls final at the World Championships, Sanita Puspure ended her long quest for a medal in the event, leaving Bulgaria with gold in her luggage. The 36-year-old’s husband told her she was like a fine wine, “getting old and getting better”.

Wunderbarr

"That's the fastest European final ever and, like Rio, when I didn't get a medal, I could easily have done it again there. And be, like, typical, just my luck. But my luck turned this time." Thomas Barr after winning bronze in the European 400 metres hurdles, the first Irishman to medal in the event in 84 years of the championships. His smile lit up the stadium.

X-rated

“And I’d just like to say from the bottom of my heart, I’d like to take this chance to apologise . . . to absolutely nobody! The double champ does what the **** he wants!” No, not Pádraig Harrington – Conor McGregor, of course.

Yelp

Actually, make that a double yelp. After Paudie Murray saw his Cork side beat Kilkenny in the camogie All-Ireland final he ended up bloodied with a nasty cut over his right eye after running in to a camera. And, later in the year, he was knocked down by a car and ended up with a broken arm. "Apparently it was a Kilkenny reg'ed car," he said.

Zzzzz

That was the gist of the response to most of the Republic of Ireland football team’s performances through 2018. So much so, this gag did the rounds: “WARNING: If you receive an email with the subject line ‘Two free tickets for the next Republic of Ireland home game’ DON’T OPEN IT. It contains two free tickets for the next Republic of Ireland home game.”