Crucially, the Finuge man, who managed Kerry for six seasons between 2013 and 2018, believes a mood for change exists, with Monday’s county board meeting expected to vote on the issue.

“The selection of the best man for the position of Captain of a team is a matter of no little importance,” suggested Dick Fitzgerald in his book How to Play Gaelic Football.

It was no surprise that new Clare hurling boss, Brian Lohan, picked a player in his own likeness as captain for the year ahead. John Conlon may inhabit a different end of the field than the Banner legend did during his playing days, but the differences between the two end there.

The giants of club hurling stand a little taller this morning. Defiant as ever following this test of their resolve and devoted to their fallen clubmen.

WHEN Siobhan Madigan interviewed Colin Fennelly for RTÉ Radio 1 Sport just moments after yesterday’s All-Ireland club final, Fennelly spoke honestly and succinctly about how far this Ballyhale team have travelled, and the deep satisfaction considering the starting point of that Ballyhale odyssey.

With a second successive title, Ballyhale Shamrocks made it a clean sweep of All-Ireland club titles for Kilkenny this weekend despite some heroics from Borris-Ileigh’s Jerry Kelly and Brendan Maher.

This bus, if anything could capture the essence of Ballyhale Shamrocks, must be the vehicle.

An hour after the game, and anybody from Ulster who has a passion for hurling is still swamping Ballyhale Shamrocks manager Henry Shefflin, queuing for selfies, presenting hurls and jerseys for his signature.

It’s a career that has produced five All-Ireland titles between club and county but Joey Holden would be the first to admit it hasn’t run smoothly.

Reid was given little space or respite by St Mullins’ Michael Walsh in the provincial decider in Portlaoise on Sunday.

It’s only a matter of months since St Mullins’ chances of doing something in Carlow were being written off. From there to here has been a victory in itself and yet Niall O’Donnell wasn’t about to look at it that way.

Few counties have as little time for romance as Kilkenny and their county champions duly put paid to the fairytale run of St Mullins in this AIB Leinster senior club hurling decider in Portlaoise on Sunday afternoon.

Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy and former Cork boss John Meyler are set to lead the PwC All-Star 2019 and 2018 hurling teams when they head out to Abu Dhabi tomorrow.

Already trailing heavily with just 10 minutes on the clock at UPMC Nowlan Park, St Martin’s midfielder Aaron Maddock found himself hurley-less, surrounded and under pressure out on the left wing.

Martin Comerford will complete Brian Cody's set of selectors in a new-look Kilkenny backroom team.

All-Ireland champions Ballyhale Shamrocks had to work hard to dispose of a gutsy Clonkill side in today's Leinster Club SHC quarter-final in Mullingar.

Experienced Ballyhale Shamrocks made it a 17th senior county title in Kilkenny yesterday, throttling a game James Stephens outfit and running out easy winners in the end.

A superb solo individual performance from TJ Reid helped champions Ballyhale Shamrocks shake off a serious test to their Kilkenny senior hurling crown.

Patrick Horgan has been shortlisted for 2019 PwC Hurler of the Year award, along with Tipperary and Kilkenny captains Séamus Callanan and TJ Reid.

James Barry revealed that he knew he would not be included in Tipperary’s All-Ireland final team over a week before the game, but instead of wallowing in disappointment, he passed on a few nuggets of full-back advice to help Barry Heffernan and Ronan Maher.

In the aftermath of their 2014 All-Ireland final loss to Kilkenny, Eamon O’Shea defiantly declared that “This team (Tipp) will always have hope, they have great character, and the nucleus of this team will go on in the future and win All-Irelands.”

Martin Comerford has bemoaned Kilkenny’s “systems failure” following Richie Hogan’s red card in last Sunday’s All-Ireland final.

Michael Moynihan has rung all the juries, collated all the votes, and accepted all the bribes.

The team includes six players from All-Ireland champions Tipperary and four from beaten finalists Kilkenny.

Trust me when I say this — it’s every referee’s worst nightmare to send a player off in an All-Ireland final.

A production of Hamlet with not one, but two princes.

A final for the annals but certainly not for the ages.

A look back at the magical moments from this year.

Tipperary’s 28th All-Ireland title came easier than expected as Richie Hogan’s first-half sending off helped to pave the way for their third Championship crown this decade.

Davy Fitzgerald believes a traditional shoot-out will suit Tipperary more than Kilkenny should it manifest itself in tomorrow’s All-Ireland final.

A Kilkenny-Tipperary All- Ireland final — wonders never cease.

In the Father Ted episode where a bomb was planted on Dougal’s milk float, two fellow priests and a tense Ted were involved in a major planning session.

The rivalry has defined so much of this decade it shouldn’t be surprising that the players and their skills have done so too.

Who’s it going to be then, eh?

There are match-ups all over the field that will be key. That’s the great thing about Tipperary-Kilkenny matches — both sides tend to go orthodox and are 15-on-15.

“I would have felt at the start of the year that there were seven or eight teams capable of winning the All-Ireland final.

Just nine days after Ballyhale Shamrocks’ All-Ireland club final win last March, Adrian Mullen was handed his Kilkenny senior debut in a challenge against Cork.

Given last Sunday night’s peculiar but surely forgivable digression by Derek McGrath and Dónal Óg Cusack had half the nation yearning for the return of the plain speaking of Ger Loughnane, it’s worth revisiting what the great Clare man had to say about the weekend’s two victors back in his final summers on our screens.

Perhaps as the two of them relaxed some evening in Cambridge, Seamus Heaney enlightened Derek Walcott about hurling and Croke Park and what happens when the known universe narrows into a man standing over a sideline cut with time running out on another season.

Four things we learned on Saturday

The Cats were better than the Munster and All-Ireland champions for the vast proportion of this game.

In the sporting realm, it’s obvious, but often under-appreciated in business is the maxim that you can’t get anything done without a team.

Limerick hurling manager John Kiely “marvels” at Brian Cody’s appetite for the game saying the Kilkennyman “is an example to all of us”.