Tipperary attacker Seamus Callanan says he and his teammates are keen to make up for last season’s disappointing championship.

From Tony Brennan to Declan Ryan, Clonoulty-Rossmore has produced players who made indelible impressions on Tipperary hurling.

As Liam Sheedy takes the helm in Tipperary for a second time, Babs Keating, who also served two spells as manager, has warned the second experience can be very different to the first.

Mickey Harte hasn’t had to just contend with the death of his daughter Michaela, as well as the more mundane disappointment of four semi-final defeats since last guiding Tyrone to an All-Ireland final — he also had a brush with cancer.

Fresh from the Department of No Further Ado, the end of season hurling awards. Often copied but never equalled, the jury (Michael Moynihan, alone) has reported in.

From precision preparation to puckout strategies, John Kiely’s Limerick has got virtually everything right this summer - but Galway will win, writes Tony Browne.

The curtain fell on the Derek McGrath era in Thurles last Sunday, but Ennis offers a more fitting set of bookends to his term in charge of Waterford, writes Michael Moynihan

U21 All-Ireland medallist Kyle Hayes gives huge credit to Limerick’s underage system for producing players ready for the big stage.

John Fogarty picks out five players who are set to make their mark on the Allianz Football League.

Munster SHL final

Cork’s 2010 All-Ireland winning defender Michael Shields has informed Ronan McCarthy of his inter-county retirement.

Con O’Callaghan was sitting in a substitute’s seat in the Hogan Stand last Sunday as Dean Rock prepared to kick the winning point for Dublin.

Kieran McGeary’s feet have barely touched the ground in the past two seasons.

Mayo fatigue is being experienced across the country but this team doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. That belligerence has to be respected yet the question is, can they transform doughtiness into dominance? John Fogarty looks at the arguments for and against.

They’ll enter Thurles on Saturday as unbackable favourites because of what Austin Gleeson did to Kilkenny in last month’s drawn All-Ireland semi-final, because of what he did in the replay six days later, because of Conor Gleeson’s assuredness when thrown in for his second afternoon of championship fare in the All-Ireland quarter-final win over Wexford and because Patrick Curran and Shane Bennett, between them, clipped 3-73 in the national league.

Richie Power Sr and Richie Power Jr have the distinction of being one of the father and son combinations where both parties won a senior All-Ireland. The final experiences against Tipperary were mixed, but the father passed on important lessons...

Tyrone 0-13 Donegal 0-11: “We became men today.” Seán Cavanagh had proven long before now that he is most certainly one of those but you knew what he meant. This Tyrone team hadn’t earned their spurs before yesterday. Now they have.

Magic from Conor Loftus and Liam Irwin brought Mayo U21 All-Ireland glory for the first time since 2006.

Limerick 2-23 Wexford 0-15: There was a time in the third quarter at a wet and dreary Gaelic Grounds on Saturday night when you suspected that the teams had just swapped playing kits at half-time, rather than changing ends.

Flannan Cleary can still picture the sliotar flying past the Castletroy post. The umpire raised his arms to signal wide, the hurlers of St Colman’s, Fermoy dropping to their knees in despair.

What do you do when your mentality is questioned? When the stain of losing tarnishes your reputation? Perhaps you call Jim McGuinness, or, in Newcastle West’s case, his brother-in-law.

Richie Bennis has no doubts when asked which Patrickswell team this current side remind him of.

Limerick boss John Kiely believes “people need to get real” and understand that Saturday’s comprehensive U21 final victory does not guarantee senior success in the coming years.

Waterford hurling manager Derek McGrath is concerned his younger players will struggle to sustain their league form into the summer.

Donegal 1-13 Tyrone 1-10: It wasn’t fitting that Donegal won nor was it that Tyrone lost. But there was no denying the appropriateness of Michael Murphy scoring the last three points of the game after enduring a dog of an afternoon.

Wexford hurler Andrew Shore is delighted and relieved he can play this year having feared he might have to write off 2015.

Hell of a game that was on Saturday evening. 

Kerry hurling coach and former Tipperary player Conor Gleeson says Tipp’s U21 football captain Colin O’Riordan is good enough to line out for the senior hurlers but only if he concentrates solely on the smaller ball game.

Allianz HL Division 1B

University of Ulster 0-10 DCU 3-10

This day last week, former Galway defender Greg Kennedy took to Facebook to unload his thoughts about the state of hurling in the county.

They haven’t gone away, you know. Clare’s exit from the senior championship may have been premature, but the county’s younger band of hurlers did not lie down after that disappointment and ended the year in spectacular fashion on Saturday night. 

Tony Considine, holds his hands up. He predicted a Cork victory and a classic. On both counts he was way off the mark.

Former Cork captain Pat Mulcahy believes the county will benefit at senior level from this year’s U21 campaign regardless of the result in tonight’s Munster final against Clare at Cusack Park.

Back in the spring of 2010 Roscommon football could only have dreamed of weekends like this.