They’ll party like it’s 1995, but Clare are already looking forward

We should have known it was Clare’s year really. A once-in-a-generation heatwave. Dublin winning the football. All we’re short is a spat about Blur and Oasis and we might as well be in 1995 all over again.

Just as that Clare win heralded a new dawn in the game, does Saturday night’s astonishing game usher in a more competitive hurling championship?

We’ve heard it said before that this has been the greatest hurling season: whatever your views on that, the battle we saw in the Dublin evening was certainly one worthy of defining an era even before that era has actually happened. Eight goals. Stunning cameos. A game alive in injury time, like the Thrilla in Manila transported to Jones’s Road.