I’m slightly annoyed with all this talk of a handy All-Ireland there now to be won — absolutely ridiculous.

If Clare get into a rhythm they are difficult to contain, as Laois found last Saturday in Cusack Park

Many question marks surrounded both teams before the Leinster hurling final.

Dublin 1-16 Limerick 1-15

It’s a five-match sprint, you’ve lost your opening two games — where would you least like to go in search of two points in the Allianz Hurling League?

FINALLY, it came to pass.

I WAS down around the square in Thurles yesterday, and five or six Dublin lads passed me talking loudly.

GOING through the records, we have two very unusual situations tomorrow in Thurles, two games in which two teams have never beaten their opposition in championship – I’m talking about Galway and Dublin.

BEFORE we get into the match analysis, I thought it was nice light touch by the announcer at the end of proceedings in Croke Park yesterday, when he thanked the Kilkenny supporters for staying off the pitch.

EVEN in Dublin it’s being said — that only someone who’s delusional or incurably romantic can see any possibility other than a big Kilkenny win in tomorrow’s Leinster hurling final.

HURLING is in a battle for recognition with the big-ball games and it’s a losing battle in most areas. Dublin is one of the most significant battlegrounds of all; it’s the capital city, home to about a fifth of the all-island population, but more significantly, home to most of the nation’s media.

THIS time last year, I swore I’d never again go to a Kilkenny-Wexford Leinster final in Croke Park.

WERE it not for a quirk of fate, instead of watching last Sunday’s exciting Tipperary/Cork Munster championship match on TV in his native Dublin, David ‘Dotsie’ O’Callaghan could well have been a central part of the action in Thurles.