"The costliest point I ever scored came in an All-Ireland Club semi-final in 2014"

In the first of a series of Championship insights, our new football columnist Colm Cooper empathises with those injured, frustrated and worst of all, forgotten.

Ten minutes from the end of a throbbing game of hurling last Sunday, Tipperary’s Cathal Barrett moved to edge himself in front of Cork’s Luke O’Farrell. If it wasn’t a do-or-die ball, it wasn’t far off it. In that furnace, every play is the one the result hinged on.

If his knee didn’t quite buckle under him, it certainly hyper-extended. Everyone winced for half a second and moved onto the next play. Some stayed watching Cathal. Wondering where was he on the tell-tale scale of pain, physically and psychologically.