Kieran Shannon: For one year only there is beauty in this Championship cruelty

Just as it was wild fun in 2001 when Westmeath were shocking the likes of Mayo with the advent of the backdoor, it's the same now in 2020 with Donegal disposing of Tyrone because there is no backdoor

The other big loser this past weekend is a crowd no one has really talked about or at least identified in such terms: the Clare footballers. Jamie Malone, above, reacts after their Munster SFC quarter-final loss to Tipperary. Photo by Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

Sometimes in the carnage that comes with a rapid-fire do-or-die championship like this, we can lose count or sight of some of the bodies.

Such was the volume of games Des Cahill and The Sunday Game team had to go through the other night, there was no time for a soundbite from Banty relaying his wild disappointment that his biyz’ championship was over after just 70 – well, 95 – minutes. If coming through the backdoor to lose to Kerry in 2007 felt like having his heart removed without surgery, then this one must have been akin to being knifed in a streetside mugging. Even if it was one he and his team walked not so much straight in to as backwards and sideways like they did with the ball when they were seven up.