Former Down player Marty Clarke has begun a new role mentoring young Gaelic footballers identified as Aussie Rules prospects, as the AFL switches its recruitment focus away from the USA and back to Ireland.

The 428-mile round trip from Newry to Ennis doesn’t begin to do justice to the journey the Down footballers have been on these last two years.

When the disaffected demand change, they should have a fairly spectacular back-up plan at the ready.

Kilkenny 2-17 Tipperary 0-18: LIKE a child proud of the time and effort put into making a sandcastle, Tipperary stood tall after 67 minutes only for Kilkenny to kick it down.

Let us now praise Anthony Cunningham’s nous.

Not in Tipperary… Brendan Cummins

Ask Paudie Butler to discuss the ciotógs on the current Tipperary team and he can’t but mention the recently departed Jimmy Doyle.

Benny Coulter last night joined the list of high profile inter-county players to announce their retirement in recent weeks, admitting it is with "a heavy heart" that he has called time on his 15-year career with Down.

Ever since Lar Corbett broke through for a goal in a largely forgotten yet pivotal 2008 league semi-final in Nowlan Park to announce the Liam Sheedy era and the Tipperary revival, it’s as if there have been two kinds of games in the life of a Tipperary or Kilkenny hurler — those against their fiercest enemy and those against everyone else.

Let me tell you somethin’, the world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Six championship seasons and six consecutive Kilkenny/Tipperary clashes, not to mention the three National League finals they’ve collided in during the same period of time.

John Hayes knows he’s in the last chance saloon of inter-county football and so intends enjoying every second.

Have a look back over Conor Counihan’s lengthy interview with this newspaper back in September and the mass exodus from the senior football panel over the last three months no longer seems so startling.

All things must pass, as George Harrison once said. All good things, too, and no All-Ireland-winning team has been an exception in that regard.

County secretary Tim Floyd has insisted Tipperary are good enough to win the Munster and All-Ireland senior hurling titles in 2014 — but only if levels of discipline, work-rate and intensity improve considerably.

With Graham Canty now in retirement, new Cork senior football manager Brian Cuthbert has turned to another defender to be his captain.

Michael Shields has been appointed captain of the Cork footballers.

The high esteem in which Cork senior football captain Graham Canty is held can been seen by the glowing tributes that have been paid to him since today's announcement of his inter-county retirement.

We may or may not be witnessing the last gasps of hurling’s greatest side but, regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s clash with Cork, no county has ever reached such heights for such a prolonged period of time as current All-Ireland champions, Kilkenny.

On top for so long, has the wheel finally turned for Kilkenny’s hurlers? All will be revealed by 9pm tonight. They established a hurling empire but great empires decay from within.

Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett have been tasked with shooting down Kilkenny in Saturday's mouth-watering All-Ireland SHC second phase qualifier at Nowlan Park (throw-in 7pm).

Kilkenny’s former All-Ireland winning captain Eddie O’Connor has questioned Tipperary’s “bottle” ahead of Saturday’s make-or-break qualifier at Nowlan Park.

More and more teams may be aping Donegal’s blueprint for success after their All-Ireland success last September, but Jim McGuinness is looking to Jim Gavin’s flamboyant Dublin side as they seek to defend their title.

It ended, as expected, with a Donegal victory, but almost everything that preceded the final whistle in Cavan yesterday afternoon deprived us of our preconceptions about James McCartan’s team.

Man can’t live on moral victories alone but Ollie Baker found some sustenance in the performance of his players in defeat.

The sun was shining, the pitch was in pristine shape, and conditions were perfect for Championship football — yet an unmistakable air of melancholy hung around Celtic Park on Sunday.

It’s best practice to ignore the self-serving agendas of sporting organisations. But the comments of Tipperary’s county chairman, Sean Nugent, on the rivalry between his county and Kilkenny, in a recent interview with Jackie Cahill, deserve a response.

Tipperary county board chairman Sean Nugent has pinpointed the 2010 All-Ireland final as the day when relations with Kilkenny began to deteriorate.

Down star Kevin McKernan has hit out at three of his team-mates who have quit the squad to travel abroad.

Tipperary 2-17 Kilkenny 1-19

Down 1-17 Cork 3-12

Watching Cork-Down encounters over these last two years and the dreamer in you would be inclined to think Gulliver and Lilliput.

Cork County Board chairman Bob Ryan expects to secure a new jersey sponsor in the “not too distant future” after O2 ended their 15-year association with the county.

Lar Corbett has vehemently dismissed suggestions he gambled on himself not scoring in this year’s Munster SHC final.

Paul Kerrigan is delighted Conor Counihan is staying on as Cork manager but said the players would have understood had he opted to leave the position.

Check back over the videos of Galway’s three Championship wins over Brian Cody’s Kilkenny and there are common threads.