If Clare play as well as they did last day, they will win

Once more with mixed feelings, then. It shouldn’t have come to this, and not because Brian Gavin was as liberal with his interpretation of the laws of added time three weeks ago as he usually is with his interpretation of the laws of the game.

Wait 53 years for a bus and then two come along at once. Typical.

Last season it was different. Last season neither side hurled well enough in the drawn match to have deserved the silverware. Last season the only possible course of reaction to Kilkenny’s 0-7 in the first half and Galway’s 1-4 in the second half was to give the pair of them a clip on the ear, then pack the culprits off on a three-week cramming course before hauling them back to sit their repeats.