When Colm Bonnar assessed the cards he had to work with last October, there’s no way he could have envisaged how that hand has fallen asunder in such a short time-span.

If last week’s Clare-Tipperary game was big, tomorrow’s Clare-Cork match is a monstrosity. The gorilla suddenly becomes King Kong.

Throughout the week, numerous people were talking Tipp up in the bar, that having pushed Waterford so hard in Walsh Park they’d be hard to beat, especially in Thurles.

This is a far less experienced Tipp team than the one Clare beat in Thurles four years ago, whereas most of these Clare lads played that day.

In the week of a championship game in my time the build-up and all the discussion around the match really added to the intrigue and debate

Kieran Kingston has so many questions to answer now ahead of Limerick in 13 days’ time

It’s still always about the All-Ireland for Cork but their attitude around the league had to change when they’ve now gone nearly two decades without an All-Ireland. Over the last few years, you were still wondering if Cork would show any interest in the competition, but they’ve almost been bullied into embracing it now.

The other semi-final was a non event given the complete no-show from Wexford.

If I was Kieran Kingston this week, I know exactly what way I’d be thinking. League semi-final. Home venue. Good weather. All-out. No looking ahead to the championship. No excuses. I’d nearly be ordering a batch of red Nike T-shirts.  Job to be done.

We’re at the stage of the season now where the league is, I won’t say irrelevant, but it’s certainly losing its value and importance with the championship coming so soon. Certain teams will crave a league title but the semi-final nearly looks a more appealing match than the final because you can go all out in that game, whereas managers might not want to risk some players two weeks out from their first championship match.