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Local Heroes

All gold: Former Sports Minister and now Health Minister Edwin Poots with Volunteer Champion Orla Smyth and the five gold medals and Best Senior Athlete Award she won at the British Transplant Games in August

Golden girl Orla Smyth rewarded with biggest honour yet

Transplant Games World record holder and Gold medallist Orla Smyth has spoken of her great honour at having been appointed to the ambassadorial role of Volunteer Champion with the Volunteer Now organisation.

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Inside Local Heroes

On the Ball: Stats, Fixtures and Tables

Stay On the Ball with our new football stats centre

London 2012 Olympics guide

Mummy porn: Does it hit the spot?

Cameron Chelsea glee goes viral

... and Terry gets in on the act

FHM's Sexiest Women 2012

Columnist Comments

• Swansea manager Rodgers the man for Liverpool

Liverpool’s search for a new manager has become a total embarrassment to the proud name of the football club.

Columnist Comments

• Joe Kernan: We must use stars’ skills to build future

From now until the third Sunday in September county players in both gaelic football and hurling will be very much in the public eye.

Columnist Comments

• Billy on the Box: DD’s big pair puts on blue show in Bavaria

What an epic battle the Champions League Final turned out to be. A clash between an organisation with a long and distinguished history, respected by friend and foe alike up against a relative newcomer, the plaything of a foreign oligarch, who is universally viewed with raised eyebrows.

Columnist Comments

• Gary Neville could be key to Wayne Rooney's form at Euros

You might have thought that ruling yourself out of the first two games of football's second most important international tournament with a shocking flash of irresponsibility was quite enough to focus the mind of the nation's most gifted player.

Columnist Comments

• Di Matteo sure to get a chance at Chelsea

What must a football manager do to retain his job? Winning two trophies in one season, including the biggest one of all, would on the face of it, make such a question ridiculous.

Columnist Comments

• Same old drivel from Spillane and friends

At the fag-end of his first contribution to the 2012 Championship season last Sunday, Pat Spillane got down to business. His main hope for the tournament ahead, he said, was that managers would throw off the shackles and play like Crossmaglen Rangers. Instantly, he killed the optimism in us all.

Columnist Comments

• Tyrone Howe: Future still bright for Ulster men

The highlight of the Heineken Cup final came several minutes from the end of the game.

Columnist Comments

• If Chelsea can be the kings of Europe, so can England

One of the consequences of the late finish in Munich and the chaotic transport arrangements after the Champions League final was to force the ‘great and the good’ of the English football media to gather on a station platform near the Arena for a promised train to the city centre that, ultimately, never arrived.

Columnist Comments

• Ulster left to count cost of their mistakes

There will seem few crumbs of comfort left for Ulster’s shattered rugby men this morning. To lose any final is heart wrenching but to lose it by a margin of five tries to one, represents something close to humiliation.