Tuesday morning, reclining in the hotel room’s easy chair, I sensed the steel had drained from Nancy’s eyes.
She was so distracted she forgot to put sugar in my tea. Out of pure concern for her wellbeing, I suggested she take a lie-down after ironing the clothes and fetching a half-dozen Lamington cakes from Dandenong Farmers’ Market.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport is a fine spot since they did it up, and as we sat there having the flask of tea with a few banana and marmalade sandwiches to tide us over, Nancy fired out the question I’ve been asked a thousand times over the years, often by her:

"How do you mean who do I think I am?," barked Nancy, revealing the upper octaves of her flinty temper that I hadn’t seen since the latter, trying days of her glorious Camogie career.

"Young woman, you listen, who do YOU think you ARE, ringing here with that attitude. In my day, I’d have…"

It was too wild to go out for a jog Tuesday night, so we stayed in, firing questions at each other from a new GAA quiz book – Sam, Liam, Strikes and Schemozzles* – sent to me by the authors Ciaran Loughran and JP Corkery. Nancy was on a run of 94 right answers on the trot – good scoring in any man’s language – when there came a beep on my phone.