Students of the classics will be well aware that the ancient Greeks had an apt word for a certain condition that raises its ugly head every now and again in GAA circles, writes An Fear Rua...

They called it 'hubris' - the unjustified pride that comes before a nasty fall. It's a word you don't hear too often in GAA dressingrooms or 'comm-mit-teee' rooms. Who knows, maybe Nicky English and some of the Tipperary panel mention it in their chats with fashion designer Louise Kennedy as she consults them about fabrics for those 'new look' jerseys she's designing for them. Almost certainly, it's a word you would have encountered from time to time in the polished and informed writings of the celebrated Cork-born GAA scribe, Kevin Cashman - he formerly of the pages of the 'Sunday Tribune'.

GAA people suffering from a bad dose of the d'oul' hubris this week include those unlikely bedfellows, the Gaelic Players' Association (GPA) and the Clare County Board, led by His Rivirence, the County Chairman, Father Michael MacNamara. The GPA are widely reported to be on the verge on a sponsorship deal with Umbro, the internationally renowned manufacturers of sports wear. The idea appears to be that Umbro will provide GPA members with gloves carrying the Umbro sponsorship logo. In ainm Dé, declares An Fear Rua, if that's the best Dónal O'Neill and the bright sparks in the GPA can come up with at this time, then we're in a sorrier state than I thought we were.

For openers, what earthly use is a pair of gloves to hurlers? Ninety nine per cent of hurlers never wear them, even in the dampest of conditions. Most hurlers want to get the feel of flesh on their 'shtick' and know that the ash has become almost an extension of themselves. A notable exception, of course, is the Kilkenny All Star, The Bould DJ Carey. The same DJ has long sported a class of cut away green padded glove on his right hand. AFR is tempted to enquire what exactly DJ does with his right hand in his spare time that he needs to protect it so much during hurling matches. Could it be, for instance, for handling all those boxes of 'Leo Yellow' he advertises on the television, or for milking cows suffering from mastitis? Or maybe The Bould DJ needs to keep his fingers soft for when he's out snaggin' turnips with the neighbours?

If footballers get a pair of gloves and hurlers get only one glove, isn't that discrimination against the hurlers? Unfortunately, of course, there's a class of 'one handed' hurler in certain counties that this might well suit. Surely The Bould DJ and the other hurling members of the GPA should be objecting to this discriminatory treatment. Offering the hurlers two right-handed gloves is no solution, but maybe they should only pay a GPA annual subscription of £20, compared with the footballers' £40? Or is this just an example of Dónal and the GPA taking on the GAA 'single handedly'?

The now disgraced former Taoiseach, Charvet J Haughey, used to dine off a story about how the late Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, often mispronounced the word 'loyalty'. In keeping with his Northside Dublin origins, the great Lemass used to pronounce it 'loy-laty'. But, whatever way you pronounce or spell it - like the word 'hubris' - it is not a term likely to feature much in the vocabulary of His Rivirince Father MacNamara and the other members of the Banner County Board. How else can you explain their decision to dump their loyal sponsors of the past decade or so, Pat O'Donnell and Martin Donnelly, for the 'high tech' Johnny-Come-Latelys at Eircell? Indeed, when some of the brighter sparks in Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds heard the news they muttered that Stephen Brewer and Eircell might be better off concentrating on giving us a proper mobile phone service. Eircell claim they will invest more £1 million in Clare county teams over the next three years. It will include performance bonuses, public relations and advertising as well as subsidised phones for County Board members and players. It covers both hurling and football, from Minor through to Senior.

As a great contemporary rival of Lemass's, the Fine Gael Leader, John Dillon, remarked in another context, the Clare County Board have 'sold their souls for penny rolls and lumps of hairy bacon...' An Fear Rua believes they will have no luck for this. Already, they've had poor results in the League against Limerick and Offaly, since this controversy broke.

Quite frankly, the unseemly way Pat O'Donnell and Martin Donnelly were hustled out the door by Clare reflected no credit on anybody. Men who had sponsored Clare when - in the immortal words of my old UCD pal, Myles na Gopaleen - 'it was neither popular nor profitable' - deserved better. Not one to cry over spilt milk, however, Donnelly has now taken over sponsorship of the Meath hurlers and the Royal County's Womens' football team. This is a shrewd move, if ever An Fear Rua saw one. The way they've been playing this year - backboned by stylish hurlers from the Kilmessan and Trim clubs - Meath seem destined for Division 1 hurling. And the Women footballers were unlucky to go out in the All Ireland semi-final last year to the eventual winners, Mayo. So, before the year is out, we could see Martin Donnelly's name gracing a number of winning podiums while the curse of Biddy Early will return to the fancy Eircell jerseys of Clare.

The renewal of another major GAA sponsorship this week - the Guinness sponsorship of the All Ireland Hurling championships - brought forth an amazing tirade from the Irish Medical Organisation at their annual conference in Killarney. Now, An Fear Rua is well aware that some of the junior hospital doctors work very long hours and that this may affect their judgment sometimes. But do they really expect the GAA to walk away from a £10 million sponsorship deal over the next five years? A sponsorship, by the way, that is reckoned by the many pony-tailed 'creatives' in the world of advertising to be the most successful ever undertaken in Ireland.

The good doctors want the GAA to limit their sponsorships to companies making 'non-alcoholic' products. God be with days when doctors used to recommend a bottle of Guinness a day to nursing mothers to help them recover their strength. Or try telling that to any of the survivors of the Munster Railway Cup team of 1949. The Railway Cup was traditionally played on Saint Patrick's Day and in 1949 the national festival was 'of a Thursda''. Played against Leinster, the result was a draw. It was decided to re-play the game on the Sunday, so the Munster Council decided the team should stay on in Dublin. According to eyewitnesses, they drank all night Thursday, and all day and all night on the Friday. On the Saturday, their drinking venues included the Zoo and the Garda Club. (How they could tell the difference between the two is another matter, given the number of gorillas you are likely to encounter in both!). On the way up to Croke Park on the Sunday morning, most of the lads needed 'a hair of the gorilla', so they dropped into the famous Barry's Hotel in Gardiner Street for a few steadying 'deorums'.

Leinster, on the other hand, had gone home after the first game and had trained diligently on the Saturday. The result? Munster's greatest ever victory in the Railway Cup...