Given my Clare loyalty and my Limerick connections to their underage Academy, I stole into Thurles yesterday like a thief in the night; head down, baseball cap pulled tightly down over my eyes, plain clothes, biro and notepad in my hand.

Coláiste Chríost Rí 2-10 St Flannan’s College 2-7: Coláiste Chríost Rí had to endure a strong St Flannan’s fightback before finally securing their first Frewen Cup (Munster U16½A Football Championship) in 24 years in Killeedy, Co Limerick yesterday.

Bluntly or succinctly? You call it but when John Kennedy took over Kilmurry-Ibrickane there was only one way he summed up his prospects.

A 64th-minute pointed free from halfway by Broadford’s Pádraig Hickey earned his side a draw with title-holders Crusheen in the opening game of the Clare SHC at Ennis’s Cusack Park on Friday evening last.

They have sampled the senior management game in recent years but these days Ephie Fitzgerald and Mickey Ned O’Sullivan are focusing on the underage ranks.

DR CROKES midfielder Ambrose O’Donovan is fit for Sunday’s Munster Club SFC semi-final against Kilmurry-Ibrickane after missing their quarter-final win over Ballinacourty with a back injury.

HE began the game on the bench but by the full-time whistle, Joseph Barry had made a defining contribution in tipping yesterday’s Dr Harty Cup Group C encounter in Charleville, in the direction of St Flannan’s.

SOMETIMES, it seems, you can have your cake and eat it. Kilmurry Ibrickane didn’t just claim a county title yesterday – their third in four attempts — they did so on the back of one of those once-in-a-lifetime team performances when everything falls into place.

AFTER an inter-county career which earned him All-Ireland medals with Kerry, Declan O’Keeffe was looking for a footballing outlet to keep him in shape in Clare where he was stationed as a garda.

THERE will be a somewhat unfamiliar look to this year’s Clare SFC final a week on Sunday.

THERE will be a somewhat unfamiliar look to this year’s Clare SFC final a week on Sunday.

AS he walked off the pitch in Páirc Uí Rinn five weeks ago after watching his Cork minor football charges defeat Clare by five points, Brian Cuthbert felt it would not be the last time his side’s path would cross with the Banner outfit.

THE Cratloe-Crusheen clash in tomorrow’s Clare SHC final (Cusack Park, Ennis, 3.30pm) reinforces the sense of a power shift in Banner hurling, from traditional powerhouses to newer forces.

THE 2009 Munster Under-21FC starts off on a unique note in West Clare tonight, with Clare and Limerick squaring off under floodlights in Cooraclare.

JOE Canning’s cracking penalty nine days ago in Thurles against Cork set us to considering a basic argument: who has the hardest shot in hurling?

IN the second round of group games in the Clare SFC, St Breckan’s had an easy 0-12 to 0-4 win over last year’s IFC winners Cratloe at Cusack Park on Saturday, having lead 0-8 to 0-1 at the break.

A PRAGMATIC Jim Greene is insistent that until Mount Sion win the All-Ireland club hurling championship they will have underachieved.