Enda McEvoy: Cork with a degree of comfort. Tipperary with no degree of comfort

For Tipp to win one All-Ireland after getting murdered by Limerick in the Munster final was fortunate; for them to win a second All-Ireland after getting murdered by Limerick in the Munster final would be pushing it

Tipperary's Barry Heffernan in action against Shane Bennett of Waterford in their June league meeting. The sides are set for an epic quarter-final on Saturday. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

A few years ago Croke Park commissioned a report into the running costs of inter-county teams and their must-have backroom accessories. Y’know, the strength and conditioning guys, the statisticians, the in-game analysts. The psychiatrists, the psychologists, the psephologists, the palm readers. And so on and so forth and suchlike. Were county boards getting bang for their buck, HQ wondered?

No. One of the report’s main discoveries was that all too many of the less successful counties were so eager to be seen to be Keeping Up With the Joneses that not only were they hiring outside contractors for the sake of it, they hadn’t a clue when it came to assessing value for money. In some instances the backroom folk, many of them from non-GAA backgrounds, weren’t quite sure what they were at either.