Socks, jigsaws and golf balls – when it comes to a present for my dad, it’s usually one or a combination of the above. But these days, we have a day out instead and last week, we headed to Live at The Marquee for Roy Keane in conversation with Roddy Doyle.

I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge soccer fan but the interview was about so much more than sport. It’s hard to believe that Roy with his signature scowl and tough-boy persona was once a boy, but a young lad he was and playing with other young lads in Mayfield set the tone for a career that made him the nation’s favourite man of the match.

Discipline, determination and grit – the characteristics that made him the player he was – really shone through in the interview. Practising day in, day out, always being on time for training and having the confidence to play against the bigger players – these lessons in his early years stood to him, but if someone didn’t meet his sky-high standards, Roy wasn’t having any of it.

His moral compass only went two ways, you were either showing up and committed or you weren’t. And so the conversation naturally came to the ‘will-they, wont-they discuss it’ moment, the World Cup in Saipan. Over 20 years has passed but this was the part of the interview in which Roy became most animated. No regrets, the team weren’t being treated right, someone had to fall on their sword or nothing would have changed. He says, that players later thanked him, saying things changed because of his actions. Roy pointed out that he never felt the benefits, but never regretted his actions. Forget football kits and hotel accommodation, the human element of the story was compelling.

That’s the thing about sport, the technical game played on the pitch is just part of the story. It’s the people involved in sport that always fascinate me. And that is a focus of this week’s paper.

They live and breathe hurling, coach the under-12s, set up club events and travel to support their team. And this is it, the pinnacle of the GAA calendar

Thirty men will line out in Croke Park this Sunday, for the All-Ireland hurling final, but there will be 82,000 more people in the stands, and a further one million watching at home and abroad.

There have been plenty of newspaper inches about Pat Ryan, Liam Cahill and the Cork and Tipperary teams. So this week, our sports journalist Denis Hurley is celebrating the people of the parish that are wearing the red and white jerseys and flying the blue and gold flags.

They live and breathe hurling, coach the under-12s, set up club events and travel to support their team. And this is it, the pinnacle of the GAA calendar.

Even better, we have two border counties in the final so the rivalry is epic. For 70 minutes, neighbours become enemies and loyalties are questioned as people side with their county of birth as opposed to their home county. Throughout it all though, there’s fun and banter whether you’re planning a match party in the parish or you’ve secured a coveted ticket and you’re on the way to Jones Road.

This week, we’re focused on the communities of Cork and Tipperary, ahead of the hurling and next week, we’re off to the townlands of Kerry and Donegal.

As a professional journalist, I should stay impartial – but then again, this is no ordinary match, this is the All-Ireland hurling final.

So excuse me when I say, Up the Rebels!