Galway’s Kevin Walsh – whom I last clapped eyes on prowling the sideline in O’Moore Park last Saturday evening in his role as one of Johnno’s management colleagues for Connacht – has been appointed manager of Sligo for the coming year. Joining him in the dugout are Paul Taylor, Paul Durcan and Dessie Sloyan, all of whom have worn the Sligo jersey with distinction down the years.

After their heroics in 2007, the poor old Magpies had a shitty time of it this year as they got relegated to Division 4 of the league and then, once we’d dumped them unceremoniously out of Connacht, they suffered the ignominy of a Tommy Murphy Cup defeat to London.  After that lot, the only way is up and, with Sligo drawn to face Galway in Connacht next year, Walsh’s Herrin Choker roots should add a bit of piquancy to this clash between the last two winners of the Connacht championship.

In other news, the GAA have cautioned that the NFL fixture list that was published last week (which I mentioned here) is, like the IRA in the bad old days, only provisional and has yet to be rubber-stamped by all of the various bureaucratic arms of the organisation.  It won’t become official (another bit of the IRA used to trade under that moniker too, didn’t it?) until Nickey says so and the 2009 Master Fixture list gets published.  I’m betting that there won’t be any changes in the finalised list (though a referral to the DRA on the matter can’t, I suppose, be ruled out) but if there are any, I’ll post the details here in due course.