Dear Noel,

Some time back, you advised Lisa from Lower Laois not to humour her husband who wanted to get involved in a seven-a-side.

My husband wants me to shorten my grip, even though I have used the same grip since I first started playing as a teenager.

I have tried to tell him it’s not that easy to change a grip – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

He assures me I will get used to the new grip in no time, and play much better Camogie as a result. I’m not convinced. I don’t want to have a row about this – we’ve just celebrated our first anniversary and, apart from this little niggle, and the fact that his mother is living with us, everything else is going just fine.

I just don’t want to interfere with the karma.

What do you think, Noel?

- Mairead (28 ½), Mid-Monaghan

Dear Noel,

I got a lifetime ban two weeks ago for a full-frontal assault on a referee. I pleaded I was going for the ball at the time, but still they threw the book at me.

Can you tell me, Noel, if the DRA are meeting this coming week? I have to be back for the second round of the championship next Saturday evening, as my brother is captain.

- Riobaird, name and address withheld to avoid further invasions of a decent man’s privacy.

Dear Noel,

I’m tough, and I always have been.

During a primary school match, after I scattered three or four players, some of them from the opposition, my teacher roared in "mighty stuff, you’re as strong as two mans" and it stuck.

I’ve never lost that edge to my game. Noel, I think they are making a mess of the game entirely. You can’t break a hurley across anyone’s back at all anymore, not even during the warm-up. Even the hurling analysts on The Sunday Game have gone soft, and that’s the straw (and not the hurl, alas) that broke the camel’s back.

You could always rely on them to promote the bit of timber.

What do you think, Noel?

- Louise (14), Lower Upperchurch, Co. Tipperary

Dear Noel,

I’ve gone through The Cycle of Life i.e. I played Under-21 at 12, Junior B at 13, Junior at 14, Senior at 15, junior at 33, and now I’m back playing Junior B again – and playing well, too, if I do say so myself.

I’ve lost the vital half-yard of speed in a three-yard tussle, but, as the man said, I don’t start from A.

Last weekend, I played centre forward. The centre-back was around the same stamp as myself. We both played a cautious, energy-preserving game. We stalked each other from the word go. It was intriguing stuff.

I’d drop the shoulder as if I were going to make a run, and then stop. He’d call for a short hand-pass back from the midfielder, but then turn his arse to it. At one stage, a stand-off developed where he wrapped his two arms around me to stop me making a burst.

This impasse lasted eight minutes.

Someone roared in advising the other players to “treat the pair of them as a roundabout”, but you will get philistines everywhere. Others chanted Sumo-Sumo-Sumo.

Anyway, I diverge. We were both taken off with ten minutes to go – to give a run to lads who train. As we sat there on the sideline, hyperventilating in unison, I asked him who their good corner-forward was.

“That’s my son,” he replied, “me second lad.”
Should I retire, Noel?

     - Maurice, Co. Limerick (39)