Should Shefflin and Tennyson start?

LET’S deal with Henry’s situation first. Even back in 2000, when all this began for both Brian Cody and Kilkenny and when DJ was still the main man up front, a young Henry Shefflin was starting to emerge as a real force on the big stage.

He scored Kilkenny’s second point in that deadly first-half blitz of Offaly and followed it up with the game’s second goal for an unassailable 2-2 to 0-1 lead after less than 10 minutes.

By game’s end he would have 2-3, and thus did he set a trend he would follow in almost every one of the subsequent seven finals in which he appeared — to the fore very early, whether it was as set-up man or as finisher, as Kilkenny established a beachhead.