John Fallon: Rules of engagement in spotlight after Conor Bradley slips away
KEVIN KILBANE was probably beset by envy last week when the sight of Conor Bradley in a Republic jersey prompted him to revisit the All-Ireland football team Chestnut.
If other codes, predominantly rugby, along with cricket, basketball and athletics can function on a 32-county basis, the argument for commonality is valid.
At a stage too that, for the first time since partition, catholics are outnumbering protestants in Northern Ireland, and the revival of the Stormont Assembly hints of political stability, the backdrop makes it fair game for debate.
Add in too that both teams travel to Paris this week in the bottom half of the European ranking for the Nations League draw and the sporting argument advocated by centurion Kilbane for pooled resources hardens.
Only it's not going to happen. Simply, the appetite to do so doesn't exist on either side of the invisible border.
This month is sure to be recalled in history for when the era of John Delaney-appointed managers officially ended but of equal, if not superior, importance is the imminent Football Pathways Plan.
That'll be a blueprint unveiled by Director of Football Marc Canham applying structure to the next decade of the game but don't expect any island dimension to feature.
For now, and the foreseeable, the two teams will remain separate members of Uefa, familiar by proximity but rivals in every other way.
Michael O'Neill knows the score on that front.
Admitting both federations compete " in an aggressive market", the fact he's begun his second spell as North supremo with a coup in Bradley he was shorn of in his first stint is significant.
It was the FAI's supposed aggression for securing younger talent that converted O'Neill into a vociferous
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