The Leinster Council have a lot to answer for.

Watching the Dubs heading down the home straight yesterday was like watching the Grand National when you had 20 quid on some nag at long odds and you were just wishing it to fall over the line.

After Dublin’s quarter-final win against Limerick, I laughed to myself when I saw some of the lazy journalism splurged across many of the papers.

Allianz HL Division 1 quarter-finals

Dublin vice-chairman and county coaching officer Sean Shanley has rejected Anthony Daly’s claims that "hurling wastelands" in the capital are being neglected.

Devotees of the traditional championship structure probably woke today with a thumping headache.

The Clare sideline were extremely agitated an annoyed by some of James McGrath’s first-half decisions at Semple Stadium yesterday.

ALLIANZ HL DIVISION 1A:

Dublin 2-25 Galway 2-13

A fantastic night in Portlaoise.

How does a team deal with loss of two outstanding leaders?

Liam Dunne has revealed he issued a dummy team on Saturday night to deceive Dublin after they recruited his video analyst earlier this year.

The only good thing about the two semi-finals in Thurles yesterday was the pitch.

The big thing question I have ahead of tomorrow’s National League hurling semi-finals is who wants to win the competition the most this year?

I have some advice for Anthony Daly this Monday morning.

Having last year won their first senior hurling national title of any description since 1939, Dublin open this year’s league campaign against Galway in Pearse Stadium on Sunday next in the unfamiliar role of defending champions.

1: Brendan Cummins (Tipperary, incumbent), David Herity (Kilkenny) and Gary Maguire (Dublin).

THE greatest sign of any game is when you see people hanging around long after the final whistle, talking about what they had just witnessed.

THE last time we saw this Tipperary team, in the Munster final five weeks ago, it was the attack winning all the plaudits, a seven-goal blitzing of Waterford.

WITH two crucial games in the qualifiers this evening and the Leinster final tomorrow, it has the makings of a great weekend for hurling.

IMITATION, it’s said, is the sincerest form of flattery and on Sunday old Kilkenny meets new Kilkenny in the Leinster SHC final. Yes, it’s the Cats versus the Dubs, but when the high-profile Kilkenny players take up their positions, they’ll be looking at a mirror image of themselves.

BEFORE the game in Tullamore I met Michael Daly, Anthony’s brother, and he had the typical Daly confident smile.

WE have three hurling games this weekend with Cork, Laois, Dublin, Galway, Tipperary and Clare in championship action.

IT WASN’T pretty, it wasn’t very competitive — in fact, truth be told, this was an ugly beast of an Allianz Hurling League Division 1 final in Croke Park yesterday, a one-sided affair that never got off the ground.

ABOUT midway through the first half in Sunday’s league clash between Cork and Dublin, one of our press box brethren wondered aloud how close the home 15 were to the starting side in the championship.

DUBLIN have made it to a first league final since 1946, and while they needed a couple of other results to fall their way, beating Cork in sunny Páirc Uí Chaoimh was a fitting end to a successful campaign for the light blues.

REGIME change in hurling?

HOW in heaven’s name did this end up as a 13-point win for Dublin?

THE crown still rests easy, the Cats are still king – that was the message from this first of the two Leinster semi-finals in Croke Park yesterday as Kilkenny got their 2010 championship campaign off to an emphatic start.

LAOIS duo Colm Parkinson and Darren Rooney played a telling role in Parnells 0-12 to 0-11 win over St Mark’s Tallaght in round three of the Dublin SFC in O’Toole Park last night.