Enda McEvoy: Limerick strain against the loudening drumbeat of their own mortality 

Sixteen of the 20 who featured for Limerick against Tipp, 13 of them starters, had featured against Galway in the 2018 All-Ireland final half a decade ago. Too many. Far too many

WORKRATE: Aaron Gillane of Limerick has a shot blocked by Dan McCormack of Tipperary during the Munster SHC match at FBD Semple Stadium. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

The late, great spy novelist John Le Carré was asked in an interview a few years back for the secret of writing good fiction. “Jeopardy on every page,” he replied. “The reader has to know what’s at stake.” As his millions of sales attest, Le Carré did jeopardy superbly. To digress not very wildly, his maxim by implication makes the Day of the Jackal, in which a hitman attempts to assassinate Charles De Gaulle, the finest thriller of them all.

The reader already knows that – spoiler alert! – De Gaulle didn’t get offed, yet Frederick Forsyth keeps us riveted till the final page. Befitting the director of High Noon, and thus a man who knew something about the art of creating and maintaining tension, Fred Zinnemann’s film version of the book cannot be recommended strongly enough either.