IT hasn’t been your typical autumn that we’ve just emerged from. From the extremes of consecutive cancellations at Thurles due to the ground being too dry, to storms that have flooded Listowel and caused a Cork fixture to be cancelled, we’ve certainly been handed a mixed bag.

Against that backdrop, Met Éireann’s reflections on the past few months (published on TheJournal.ie on Thursday) made for interesting reading. According to records, the autumn just gone was the 19th warmest in Ireland since the year 1900, described as being “mild, dry and relatively dull”.