Treaty will be hyped but Clare will be psyched up to their eyeballs

There was a famous photograph taken in 2000 at a Leinster U21 final, shortly after Offaly had dethroned Cork to reach the All-Ireland senior final, where they were due to square up to Kilkenny again. Anyway, some fella got a notion to make a statement and he chose a slogan across his jersey to broadcast it. ‘Munster hurling my arse.’

The TG4 cameras picked it up and a host of media outlets ran with the story, all loaded with the intent of bigging up Leinster ahead of Munster hurling. Offaly had been All-Ireland champions in 1998 but, after Clare and Tipperary had contested the first all Munster All-Ireland final in 1997, many Leinster folk were only dying to fire a shot back across the Munster skies as soon as the opportunity presented itself.