A pulsating and absolutely magnificent All Ireland intermediate hurling club championship final eventually went the way of Tullaroan at Croke Park this evening.

Kilkenny champions, Tullaroan, opened and finished in style when blasting their way into the All-Ireland intermediate club hurling championship final.

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.

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

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

When Paddy Stapleton’s family were confronted with a crisis last autumn, he found he could call on old teammates — and some old adversaries — for support.

Former All-Ireland winning captain Michael Fennelly has advised Kilkenny’s players to tap into the tears and emotion of 2016 as they prepare to face Tipperary once more.

And then there were two — but how many of the Kilkenny and Tipperary teams are in the driving seat for All-Stars? John Fogarty makes his shouts

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.

Wexford have taken the physical battle for possession to a level beyond even Kilkenny’s great four-in-a-row All-Ireland winners, believes former Cats captain Brian Hogan.

When you referee a provincial final it puts you in a good position for later on in the year and both Paud O’Dwyer and John Keenan will feel they didn’t lose any ground after their performances yesterday.

The revamped hurling championship has given us many wondrous memories this last 13 months but the sight of Wexford and Kilkenny supporters jiving away together to the tune of 'Dancing at the Crossroads' may well be the most bizarre.

It was the first time that the Cats were beaten in the Championship on home soil since 1949.

There are some All-Ireland finals that were they played another nine times would produce a myriad of different outcomes.

Brian Cody’s 21st championship campaign got off to a winning start thanks to an inspirational display by captain TJ Reid.

When Henry Shefflin talked up Limerick’s All-Ireland credentials earlier this week, he kept referencing the spine of their team.

GRASS is regarded as the key to profitable and sustainable milk and meat production in Ireland, where there is an ongoing campaign to grow more of it.

The scoreline suggests a rip-roaring contest but that is a false reading.

He was wearing the No 13 jersey on his back last Sunday, and only registered 0-1, but the positioning of Ger Aylward at centre-forward for Kilkenny against Cork was extremely eye-catching, writes Peter McNamara.

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.

Readers know how the NFL draft works: In an effort to maintain competitive balance, teams which perform poorly this season get to choose better prospects coming out of college for next season. Michael Moynihan opens a similar draft for hurling counties.

Kilkenny have had little time to recover and re-energise since last Sunday. Fatigue will be a factor this weekend and it will be easier to defend a lead rather than chase a deficit in the finishing stretch.  

Over the last while, I’ve been listening to Alan O’Mara’s excellent podcast ‘Real Talks’.

The Twitterati, and numerous other Twitter bandits, were laying it into Jackie Tyrrell and I hot and heavy last Sunday night. They weren’t happy with our comparative analysis between the Munster and Leinster finals. A few of them told us to go away and watch the World Cup, that we might know more about Colombia and Japan than Cork and Clare.

"Germany going out is going to be a great study for coaches. Not simply bad coaching or mismanagement. What worked today may not tomorrow. So many variables required to win persistently. How did team tactically evolve since 2014? Was there enough adversity in qualifying campaign?"

Brian Cody took a seat in front of the media, after Kilkenny’s Leinster final stalemate with Galway, and planted his tongue in his cheek.

Call it as it was. Last day out against Galway, Kilkenny were pretty much crushed, writes PM O’Sullivan.

Kilkenny 0-22 Wexford 1-18

I’m led to believe Stephen Cluxton had blood in his mouth following that first-half clash with James McGivney, so the conspiracy theorists won’t be happy.

A stunning second-half comeback by Kilkenny this evening saw them exact revenge on Wexford for last year’s Leinster semi-final defeat.

Whiplash is not an injury often associated with hurling, but the condition kept Kilkenny’s Eoin Murphy out of three league games.

The Allianz Hurling League concluded yesterday with a resurgent Kilkenny upsetting the odds against favourites Tipperary, writes Donal O’Grady.

Our writers analyse what we learned from the league...

Brian Cody has been able to take a break from the psychological manipulation, because Kilkenny, for the time being, are underdogs, writes Larry Ryan

Eddie Keher knows there are better teams than Kilkenny at the moment and he doesn’t expect them to win the All-Ireland title this year, but he is convinced they are developing quicker than anticipated.

With the third round of the Allianz Hurling League taking place this weekend, Enda McEvoy eyes eight mid-term trends worth keeping a weather eye on...

Our hurling writers pick some trends and topics out of the opening weekend of hurling league action.

Cork 1-24 Kilkenny 0-24: New season, new stadium, new manager: Cork collected their first NHL points on Saturday night, in their first competitive game in the redeveloped Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

While hurling qualifiers easily swerve into a labyrinth, that place of uncertainty and hesitations, Monday’s draw produced straight and narrow terrain, writes PM O’Sullivan.

Henry Shefflin believes the GAA has missed a trick in delaying the draw for the All-Ireland hurling qualifiers until next week.

Wexford were thoroughly deserving winners against Kilkenny. Twenty-one scores to 14 scores is an eloquent ratio, writes PM O’Sullivan.