Lynch can emerge into sunlight after arduous struggle against current

At 2pm local time on Monday last, 52 hours after entering the water and after four previous failed attempts over the previous 35 years, 64-year-old Diana Nyad emerged from the ocean in Florida Keys and thus became the first person to swim the 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage.

This Sunday, as Clare take on Cork in the All-Ireland SHC final in Croke Park, if there’s any one member of either panel who can empathise with Diana’s persistence, it’s Fergal Lynch.

On a different level, admittedly, but consider this: now 31, Lynch first broke onto the Clare senior hurling panel in 2002, making this is his 12th full season. In that time he has seen five managers come and go, was himself seen by some of those as a starter, by others as a finisher but by none as a mainstay of the side.