The team which lost by the least amount — Cork — will still have attracted the most criticism

Tipp are heading into this campaign with a chip on their shoulders. They've had a full 14 months of listening to the theory that Kilkenny did Tipp the biggest favour in their history by taking Limerick out of the equation last year

Some of these guys may take their emotional energy from the crowd so you’d wonder now will that have an effect on the big guns here like Patrick Horgan and Austin Gleeson?

I don’t want to be hammering lads but if you took Tony Kelly out of the team yesterday, Clare would have been whipped

The counter-argument is how much more difficult will it be to suppress emotion — all around the county — after a Munster final or All-Ireland win? I don’t see that being a problem.

The Rockies had a difficult start. They looked nervous early on. They shipped two goals. Then things changed

Joanne Cantwell asked me at one stage during commentary if I was whispering. I was just so conscious of the subs and the management teams below me hearing what I might be saying about them

In the second of a two-parter, Anthony Daly revists the Offaly trilogy of '98, the 'sit-in' and what haunts him most from a painful year.

In the first of a two-parter, Anthony Daly revisits the tumultuous and controversial hurling season of 1998

In July 2008, I was upstairs in my sports shop in Ennis looking for runners to put out on display when my phone beeped with notification of a voicemail. I didn’t recognise the number of the missed call but I dialled into my inbox.