Ben Brosnan was the Wexford key attacker as he punished the opposing defence at every opportunity in what was a faultless attacking display.

WATCHING a club challenge game recently one of our forwards scored a brilliant goal but he was still admiring the strike when his man won the resultant puckout.

John Fogarty and Eoghan Cormican preview the weekend's GAA fixtures.

“We have written to all units reminding them to exercise caution at this time around party political activities and requests of this nature,” confirmed a GAA spokesperson.

It’s not that Clare’s opening salvo in this year’s National League was a box-ticking exercise, but as soon as the final whistle sounded to signal this facile 16-point victory it’s safe to say that everyone of a saffron and blue hue was moving towards next Sunday’s mouth-watering clash with Wexford.

Dublin’s bid for a record 10 Leinster football titles on the trot will begin in Tullamore next May.

“Do you reckon this will be Cody’s last year, Enda?”

“Hurling is hurling.” Brian Cody didn’t need to say any more.

If speculation hardens into fact, Davy Fitzgerald will take a break from inter-county management next season, thus ending 12 seasons on the sideline.

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.

You can throw a bone to Brian Cody but you can’t expect him to bite on it.

Davy Fitzgerald spoke about the atmosphere they have created together. How they arrive for training an hour before it starts, sit around and chat, and generally enjoy each other’s company before getting down to business.

Lee Chin confessed himself to being “a bit lost for words” afterwards, an occurrence he promptly acknowledged to be unusual. But, in the circumstances, why not?

There was always an understanding, an acceptance even, that if Wexford were going to win a first Leinster senior hurling title in 15 years on Sunday afternoon then they would have to do it the hard way.

Thirteen months ago, Henry Shefflin tried to do his club-mate TJ Reid a turn. Rather than calling on referees to protect his fellow ‘hurler of the year’, Sheffin suggested Brian Cody move him to full-forward to avoid man-marking.

The Kilkenny forwards around TJ Reid need to step up their scoring contributions, according to former Cats defender Brian Hogan.

Dublin captain Chris Crummey admits he felt mixed emotions as the county secured their All-Ireland survival in Parnell Park last Saturday only to discover they missed out on Sunday’s Leinster final.

When I arrived in Pearse Stadium for work with RTÉ yesterday, I’d only had a cup of coffee in my system. I had to be on-site by 10.30am but I was hungry by the time the Tipp-Limerick match started at 2pm.

It now seems with every week that the GAA are being given more reason to cut down on the numbers populating the sidelines.

Cork manager John Meyler says preparations are complete for tomorrow’s Munster SHC clash with Clare — so what are his Saturday evening plans?

Tomorrow’s meeting with Limerick is a chance for Tipp to rest some ‘made men’

Of the eight teams doing Championship battle this weekend, only Tipp and Limerick are guaranteed to progress.

It’s March 10 last, a wind- assisted Wexford have outscored his team by 12 points in the second half to make the league knockout stages, and to make matters worse, Conor Delaney has been red carded in the closing stages.

Fermanagh travel to Clones to face Monaghan in the pick of the ties

Limerick’s defeat to Cork on Sunday once more highlighted the struggles that teams face when coming in cold to the cauldron of Championship hurling.

Attendances for the opening two rounds of the Munster senior hurling championship are up over 15% on last year’s corresponding four fixtures.

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

For the second year in a row, Allianz Division 1 hurling quarter-finals will take place on the St Patrick’s weekend due to postponed matches.

Once Limerick’s All-Ireland celebrations had tapered off, Gearóid Hegarty found himself with itchy feet.

Referees chief Willie Barrett has rejected Davy Fitzgerald’s suggestion that hurling referees are being put under too much pressure to carry out diktats from Croke Park, leading to unnecessary red cards being doled out.

Any time I’m on the road on a Saturday evening, I always tune into Céilí House, one of RTÉ Radio’s most popular programmes of traditional Irish music and song, writes Anthony Daly.

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.

Cork manager John Meyler wasn’t surprised Clare won through to the Munster final with a home win over Limerick.

I’m not sure if I ever noticed before that Father’s Day falls around Bloomsday.

Waterford County Board chairman Paddy Joe Ryan has claimed the GAA and the Munster Council “would love to” demolish the Gaelic Grounds and Fitzgerald Stadium.

Cork take on Waterford this Sunday in the last of their Munster SHC round-robin games, having had a break last week, but Rebel manager John Meyler admits he “missed the buzz” of a game, having been in action for the previous three weeks in a row.

Kilkenny 0-22 Wexford 1-18

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

What’s seldom is wonderful.

If Kilkenny hurling was a Leaving Cert subject, Wexford would treat it as the one you don’t count when calculating your points total.

WEXFORD 0-17 GALWAY 1-23: The Union Jack fluttering by the roadside on the way up to Wexford on Saturday evening was no doubt linked to a polo match going on in the field beyond, and when your correspondent was coming home later in the evening it was still waving, while in the middle distance figures milled around a marquee, no doubt analysing the . . . I want to use the word ‘chukka’ . . . just ended.

When I was with the Limerick underage academy, and the Limerick minors, my boss Joe McKenna had a couple of hard and fast rules, one of which was very simple — never play Cork in a challenge game. 

Twenty-eight games into his management of Wexford, Davy Fitzgerald’s win rate now reads an even 75%, the victory over Offaly seven days ago earning him a jump of almost one percentage point.

For Pearse Stadium and Cusack Park, the wait is over.