When we won the All-Ireland with Clare in 1995, the following year’s league kicked off that October. The celebrations obviously took their toll early in the campaign. We lost our first match to Kerry but the bank of fitness we’d built up stood to us as October segued into November. We went up to Birr and put on an exhibition against Offaly in our last match before the winter-break.

A little over a week out from the Dublin county final with Kilmacud Crokes, Anthony Daly sat down with reporters for over half an hour and talked hurling.

What kind of game are Tipperary trying to prosecute, asks Enda McEvoy.

Twenty years ago, there were the three shadowy priests who, it was claimed, had knowledge of Colin Lynch’s suspension before the Munster Council had even met to decide his faith. In Liam Doyle, Seánie McMahon, and Anthony Daly, meanwhile, Clare had the three wise kings, forming one of hurling’s greatest half-back lines. Two decades on from the Banner’s last Munster SHC success and the All-Ireland title that got away, the trio recall that tumultuous summer of ’98, from Lynch’s ban to Jimmy Cooney’s bad time-keeping.

ON Wednesday, Seánie McMahon, Liam Doyle and I sat down with John Fogarty, of this parish, in Dromoland Castle. We rolled back the good times, regaled ourselves with old stories and rekindled those magical flames which burned in our hearts throughout our Clare careers (the details of the conversation appear elsewhere on the Irish Examiner website today).

Gardaí were threatened their noses would be bitten off by a man who called them “pigs”.

When we won the All-Ireland with Clare in 1995, the league back then began in October, which wasn’t good for the head, and especially the body, writes Anthony Daly. 

Met the proverbial — and in this case corporeal — man in the street the day before the league quarter-finals. The man in the street in question is a keen punter, often to be espied going in and out of his local Ladbrokes.

Dublin will hope to perform this evening but Tipp should win, while Wexford Park will be electric for Limerick’s visit, writes Anthony Daly.

Former Clare manager Ger O’Loughlin has derided the sweeper system as reducing hurling to a game of “ping-pong”.

When the year ends in ‘5’, fate’s hand guides Cork fortunes in strange ways

Two All-Ireland titles and multiple All Star awards have secured Eoin Kelly’s place in Tipperary hurling folklore. Now he is slowly growing accustomed to life as a former inter-county hurler, but the memories of the glory days in blue and gold are as fresh as ever.

Cork 2-18 Wexford 2-12

County champions Kilcoo are through to the knockout stages of the Down SFC and sent out a strong message to their rivals yesterday with a 4-17 to 1-7 win over Loughinisland.

The sun was shining, the pitch was in pristine shape, and conditions were perfect for Championship football — yet an unmistakable air of melancholy hung around Celtic Park on Sunday.

Ray Houghton has welcomed the decision of LA Galaxy to allow Ireland’s record goalscorer Robbie Keane to join up with the national squad in time for the prestige friendly against England at Wembley next Wednesday.

A man involved in a fight tried to pulled a garda over a wall during an attempted arrest.

He says not hugely religious but when Andy Moran’s sister came home from a trip to Lourdes last week with a special wristband for him, he couldn’t help but wish she had done it a month earlier.

Amid the hysteria at St Tiernach’s Park in Clones yesterday afternoon as Donegal celebrated their first retention of the Ulster championship as only they can, manager Jim McGuinness got a quiet chance to reflect.

Donegal 2-18 Down 0-13

Down’s Benny Coulter has declared himself fit for Sunday’s Ulster SFC final with Donegal.

James McCartan joked that he had a taxi ordered and the engine was running.

Down 1-14 Monaghan 1-13

Aidan Carr has vivid enough memories of 1994 and the role his father played in Down’s last All-Ireland success.

Selector Paddy O’Donoghue admits Dublin’s discipline is not what it should be after deciding not to appeal Bryan Cullen’s one-match ban.

Down 0-08 Kerry 0-14

Allianz Football League Division 1: Cork 4-11 Down 0-10

James McCartan insists survival in Division One remains Down’s priority despite a one-point win over Ulster champions Donegal in Newry on Saturday night.

Down 1-10 Donegal 1-9

TYPICAL, no-one has ever bothered to pick the greatest team of (allegedly) under-rated players of all times in the games of the Gael.

Cork 2-20 Down 0-14

Down are set to field an unchanged team when they clash with Cork in tomorrow's All-Ireland SFC fourth round qualifier at Croke Park (throw-in 6pm).

James McCartan has acknowledged that the manner of last year's All-Ireland SFC final defeat will provide motivation for Saturday's rematch with Cork.

Gerard McCartan and Caolan Mooney will start for Down in their All-Ireland SFC third round qualifier against Antrim at Casement Park (throw-in 7pm).

DOWN kept their championship season motoring along at Páirc Esler on Saturday but there was little to suggest the journey through the scenic route will be as rewarding as last year.

Down 1-16 Leitrim 1-08

Conor Garvey has been drafted into the Down team for tomorrow's All-Ireland SFC second round qualifier against Leitrim in Newry (throw-in 3pm).

Down 2-11 Galway 1-09

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

On the way into Semple Stadium yesterday I met three fine Waterford men, Tony Wright, Michael O’Donnell and a man with a great Clare name but who assured me he was all Waterford, Paddy McNamara.