There was a time for Ballygunner when playing Clare opposition in Munster competition was always one match too far, but those days of serial defeat to the best of the Banner have been well and truly ended these past three years.

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.

Last Sunday they won the Waterford SHC for the sixth year on the spin and now progress to meet Sixmilebridge at a Clare venue in the provincial quarter-final on November 3.

Sixmilebridge joint-captain Seadna Morey says the club are determined to make amends for their recent poor record in the Munster championship.

For 12 years they didn’t speak to one another but for the sake of their club Tim Crowe and Davy Fitzgerald yesterday combined forces to guide Sixmilebridge to their fourth Clare SHC title in seven years.

Cathal Malone was in marvellous form as he helped guide Sixmilebridge to their fourth Clare SHC title this decade, their third in five seasons.

Fr Harry Bohan is 80 but you wouldn’t know it.

Champions St Joseph’s are 60 minutes away from retaining their title after a semi-final victory over Doonbeg at Cusack Park on Saturday.

Although Moloney — joint manager with Gerry O’Connor last year — was invited to put his name forward, county chairman Joe Cooney confirmed that officials were also exploring alternatives to the Scarriff man taking sole charge of the team in 2020.

Cratloe. Indefatigable Cratloe, whether it’s with the big ball or small, they just keep rolling along from week to week and match to match in pursuit of county senior titles.

Cian Lynch, Declan Hannon, Gearoid Hegarty, and Graeme Mulcahy have been restored to the Limerick team for tomorrow’s Munster hurling final.

Clare’s Jamie Shanahan has been ruled out of the Munster senior hurling championship after undergoing surgery to alleviate a long-standing back issue.

Shane O’Donnell has rejoined the Clare senior hurling panel following his return from Harvard University last week.

Here's your afternoon bulletin.

The game was over and a damp dusk drawing in but the people walking around Walsh Park were in no hurry to leave.

The scramble for national honours, a second All-Ireland title, will begin again after Christmas but suffice to say for now that Na Piarsaigh’s status as one of the finest Munster club hurling teams of all time is well and truly secured.

Things we learned

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.

“The record is not something we have brought up or even discussed,” said Na Piarsaigh manager Shane O’Neil after their Munster semi-final win over Blackrock.

Sixmilebridge were the popular favourites to pull in a third Clare county senior hurling title in five years, but Clooney-Quin didn’t read the script. The underdogs, in a first county senior final for three-quarters of a century, put it up to the ’Bridge that first day.

Sixmilebridge 1-20 Clooney-Quin 1-14: Twelve minutes into the second half of yesterday’s Clare senior hurling final, Clooney-Quin’s James Corry popped over what seemed a tidy but unremarkable point out — only there was something remarkable about it.

Sixmilebridge captured their 13th Clare senior hurling title on Sunday, emphatically beating Clooney-Quin in Sunday's replay.

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.

Davy Fitzgerald has admitted that encountering a number of seriously ill children in Wexford this year has put hurling and his own management role into its proper context.

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.

Concern about distraction was the only reason that Davy Fitzgerald and Wexford chose not to contest his proposed eight-week suspension.

Former Wexford captain Keith Rossiter has backed Davy Fitzgerald’s appointment as manager and claimed that there is scope for “serious progress” with the team.