It’s the cliché which greets the beginning of many sports news bulletins on a Friday or Saturday morning: “A bumper weekend of sport.” Sadly it has not been something uttered much in 2020. But the sound of the theme tune to The Sunday Game last weekend was music for the heart. It was like a ray of sunshine peering through a dark cloud, a return to some semblance of normality. Even if GAA is not your thing, you couldn’t but be brought back to good times. “Da, da, da, dadadadada, da, da...”

Say what you like about sport, but for so many people it’s a tonic right now. Hands up, a couple of months back, I shook my head at the idea of the GAA trying to shoehorn a rushed championship into a few weeks before Christmas. At the time, it didn’t feel right or like a priority.

People picked up the phone on Saturday and Sunday to text or chat to friends about the GAA, soccer and rugby

But the weekend of sport we’ve just had including some great championship matches is proof to the contrary. Instead of pandemic numbers, for many, Saturday was spent analysing the numbers needed by Ireland to clinch the Six Nations Championship.

People picked up the phone on Saturday and Sunday to text or chat to friends about the GAA, soccer and rugby (which by the way are the three most popular sports in Ireland in that order among the general public according to the most recent Teneo sports index). We gloated and we taunted and we got angry and we cheered but in doing so, we were fuelling the mind with positivity. We have something else to talk about rather than you know what. If you are an Ireland rugby fanatic from Monaghan with a grá for Manchester United, then it will have been quite a disappointing weekend.

But at least you were engrossed and the mind was elsewhere rather than worrying. That is why sport is important. That is why on balance, the greater good was achieved by allowing the GAA championships to begin.

We must do our best to adhere to the guidelines as advised by NPHET

As ex-Dublin manager and aviation boss Jim Gavin told me in a rare interview he granted me on RTÉ radio last Sunday, if we applied the precautionary principle to flying, then no aeroplane would ever leave the hanger.

The same attitude applies when it comes to sport in the pandemic. We must do our best to adhere to the guidelines as advised by NPHET and it is understandable why we should have been wary about allowing the likes of inter-county football and hurling championships to go ahead.

But when you look at the bigger picture, it adds up to more than the sum of its part. Of course there is a huge risk of spreading the virus as contact sport goes against everything we are trying to do to counteract the spread. But it has been a risk worth taking in terms of the greater good it is doing for society.

Granted not everybody is into sport, and it is a pity for those of us who enjoy the arts, going to the cinema or the theatre or visiting a museum as our outlet

In my own bubble of contacts, there was unbridled joy on Saturday last thanks to Cavan’s last minute win over Monaghan. “I am going to have a glass of whiskey,” declared my jubilant 80-year-old father not known to partake in such indulgences save for a really special occasion, and especially not at 3pm.

Granted not everybody is into sport, and it is a pity for those of us who enjoy the arts, going to the cinema or the theatre or visiting a museum as our outlet. But that shouldn’t prevent those that are from basking in the sunshine which sport brings and we shouldn’t always make decisions on an either/or basis. Roll on the weekend!

It’s not rocket science

Yes, you are meant to pull your mask up over your nose too. You’re welcome.