County boards must realise they are now in the events and entertainment business

While most of the talk around the new-look hurling championship has been how it will severely test the depth and durability of each panel, Walsh Park’s hosting of Kilkenny at the weekend brought to light how it’ll test the suitability of certain provincial grounds as well.

After he made his way through the turnstiles, Tony Browne took up a spot on the terraced bank alongside an 80-year-old man from Fourmilewater. The small stand on the opposite side of the field was already full, and so the octogenarian had to be content with standing room only, enduring the intermittent rain.

“I was fine watching the game from my vantage point,” Browne wrote in his column for this paper yesterday, “but surely we could be laying on something better for a man of that age?”