It was a bitter pill to swallow for the Leesiders, who have been UL’s victims on each occasion.

In testing conditions, they were forced to play three-quarters of this third round a player down after Jarlath Collins received a straight red card for an altercation with an opposing player in the 18th minute.

Darragh O’Sullivan didn’t have much joy against Clare opposition during his Ballygunner playing days. He’s hoping for better luck now that he’s traded the jersey for the bainisteoir’s bib.

Brian Lohan has been appointed Clare hurling manager, his ratification arriving at the outset of a county board meeting dominated by the social media abuse directed at members of the executive.

When I travelled to last year’s Cork county final, I felt right at home when I saw the black and white flags and the huge swell of Midleton support.

Before I led the Clarecastle team out at half-time of yesterday’s Clare county final, to collect our 25-year anniversary plaques, somebody handed me the 1994 county final programme. We beat a young St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield team that afternoon and, as I scanned the teams, Ger Hoey’s name jumped out at me.

All employees at the Irish manufacturing arm of pharma giant Roche in Clarecastle will be made redundant by next June.

Cork GAA has slated attractive senior hurling championship quarter-final double-headers for the weekends of September 14-15 and 21-22.

About half an hour after the final whistle in Croke Park yesterday, as the Wexford players were still celebrating on the pitch, I ran into a bunch of Wexford supporters I last met in Down Royal racecourse years ago.

“I wouldn’t like to have missed any championship matches for Clarecastle in my time, but maybe they need to look at something.”

When Cork finally hit a rhythm and a groove in the second quarter yesterday, everybody around me was probably thinking the same as the entire hurling community. ‘Yeah, Cork have finally got it together now. They’ve weathered the storm. They’ll drive on. They’ll win this handy.’ And the Cork players certainly seemed to think the same.

On the night Cork beat Clare in the 1999 Munster final, Johnny Callanan, the former Clarecastle and Clare hurler, and a great personal friend, told me a funny story. A few pints had helped to siphon some of the pain from the defeat but Cal wanted to try put more perspective on the day’s events.

Clare absolutely cashed in those chips when the roulette wheel seemed about to spin off the table, writes Anthony Daly

While Clare were sharp, Derek McGrath’s team were blunt. And surprisingly and disappointedly, undisciplined.

Given that this league has, at times, been a huge phoney war, God only knows how teams are going to treat the quarter-finals, writes Anthony Daly.

The memories came flooding back to me in Thurles yesterday from all angles. It was almost 20 years to the day since we, Clarecastle, won our only Munster title in 1997. We had beaten Ballygunner in the semi-final. There was a Limerick team in the final again yesterday, just like there had been when we met Patrickswell.

There’s a little history between Ballygunner and Na Piarsaigh. Given the pool of clubs jostling to get out of the Munster club SHC, that’s hardly surprising, but Paul Flynn is worried that the backstory may be more beneficial to the Limerick champions than to his club mates in black and red.

Clare and Munster champions Ballyea lost their crowns with a 1-16 to 1-12 defeat to Newmarket-on-Fergus at Cusack Park, Ennis on Saturday evening.

It’s only been a week since he officially stepped down from his director of hurling post with Limerick’s underage academy, but Anthony Daly is never short of suitors and he’s already lending his weight to another cause.

On my first year on the Clare panel in 1989, we had five-weeks with the clubs after the league finished, writes Anthony Daly.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.

I came in early yesterday morning to watch the Clare U21s play Dublin in a challenge game in Clare-abbey, our old pitch in Clarecastle. 

Kerry hurling manager Ciaran Carey has branded as “silly” a motion to this year’s GAA’s Annual Congress aimed at deleting the rule which allows players from stronger counties represent those from further down the pecking order.

On Thursday, Stephen Sheedy and I went up to Athenry to have a look at the greyhounds and drop off a few tickets to Gerry Holian.

Former All-Ireland medallist Patrick Kelly is available for a potential recall with his native Clare in 2016 after being ruled ineligible to continue with Christy Ring Cup champions Kerry.

It proved a miserable weekend for Cratloe GAA fans. Their talisman Podge Collins suffered a serious knee injury and their side, the county senior hurling champions, were defeated by Ballyea, in the first game of their title defence at Cusack Park on Saturday.

Kerry must do without Clare native Patrick Kelly for Saturday’s Christy Ring Cup semi-final as the game clashes with his club Clarecastle’s championship game against Clonlara.

It’ll be the wrecking ball for Cork soon enough as the bulldozers move into Páirc Uí Chaoimh. But it was county secretary Frank Murphy who was constructive, namely hitting the nail on the head when he spoke against plans to end the St Patrick’s Day All-Ireland Club senior finals.

Cork IT 0-19 NUI Galway 0-10: Cork IT are just one more win away from a third Fitzgibbon Cup final in four years after they advanced past NUI Galway at the CIT Sports Stadium yesterday.

Eight points from John O’Dwyer helped last year’s beaten finalists Cork IT into the semi-finals of this year’s Fitzgibbon Cup as they saw off NUI Galway this afternoon.