No quarters asked for but we'll take what we're given

Here are some things that shouldn’t work but somehow do. Dancing with the Stars. Daniel and Majella roaming the highways and byways of Ireland channelling their inner Jack Kerouac. Chocolate with raspberry. The Trump White House (Loosely speaking).

Here’s something else that functions almost despite itself. The National Hurling League quarter-finals. There’s a reader in Limerick, more of whom anon, who’ll digest this paragraph with a triumphant smile.

By any normal metric they oughtn’t to. The National Hurling League structure resembles something drawn up by Central Council on the back of a cigarette packet.