So Ali delivered a crippling body shot to the Ploughing Championships. In a year where weather has wreaked havoc on farming, it’s almost fitting that the flagship event of the sector was washed out.

Storm Ophelia and the snows that accompanied it saw rural Ireland in lockdown back in March and the drought is still providing a massive challenge to farming to provide enough sustenance for our livestock for the winter.

At the time of writing, Thursday’s fate was unclear but the National Ploughing Association has committed to an extra day on Friday.

What we do know is that the decision to delay and then cancel on Wednesday was necessary. You can’t risk public safety in a pop-up city of tents, marquees and gazebos. Fixtures and fittings, no matter how well secured, are temporary and vulnerable to high winds. Rain has hit previous championships hard, but been endured and overcome; I could envisage Anna May McHugh and co battling snow with ease.

In another deep irony, the only thing that survived the cancellation of the Ploughing Championships on Wednesday was the ploughing championships on Wednesday.

While the exhibitors, entertainers, hucksters and politicians (draw your own Venn diagram of that demographic) all headed for home, and the public never got the chance to go on site, the men and women who plough competitively went up and down their plots through the wind and rain, as stoic and largely ignored as ever.

Furrows were being ploughed in the competition plots, even as furrows were browed in the NPA headquarters as the 11 o’clock delayed start was first pushed back to midday and then the tough but necessary decision to pull the plug on Wednesday altogether was taken.

Of course, we did have a Tuesday, complete with a slew of presidential candidates. I saw former (IFA) president John Dillon accompanying Gavin Duffy around the site. The Limerick man was never afraid to back an outside bet.

A couple of gems from Screggan. I overheard a wife saying to her husband outside one stand: “No use going in there – they’d only be talking bullshit.”

And another husband saying to his wife: “Are you enjoying yourself now? Because this is the last day of arsing around for the year.”

You really couldn’t make it up.