Flashing, cutlets, Baileys (no ice!) and another day

When you start the morning by inadvertently flashing your manhood to your long-suffering mother, the day can only get better, right? When the same woman has been sitting on a deckchair outside your apartment since early morning, waiting for you and your pregnant wife to surface, laden down with all the necessary fry-up components (minus eggs!) and bedecked in the blue and gold of Tipperary you begin to wonder are you dreaming. When you get over the shock of it all and try to decipher who got the bigger fright, you realise that the spoils were shared, much like they were nearly eight hours later in the cauldron that is Croke Park.

Who needs Ó Muircheartaigh anyway?

The news that David Nalbandian had been defaulted from the Queen's club final mustn't have been relayed to Martin Kiely on Sunday afternoon. If it had he would have surely mentioned it. Very little wasn't mentioned during his radio commentary of what was a pulsating Munster hurling semi-final at Semple Stadium. From German chancellor Angela Merkel to chickens scrapping for bits of bread to diving at the European Championships, Kiely covered it. Maybe co-commentator and well-known tennis lover Ken Hogan (that's pure fiction there) kept the information to himself? Perhaps the former Tipperary netminder Sky Plus-ed it, or is it Sky+ed? Not important. 

Corbett 'happy enough to be just playing like'

We all know that Thurles is the home of hurling. That’s a given. You would assume then that Tipperary would be the team to beat when it came to the ancient game. That’s not a given. Down through the years Tipperary were a team to fear, a team to be respected, a team to measure your sides performance off. But the Premier County have slipped down the pecking order in recent times and it will be seven years this September since a beaming Declan Carr climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand. 

Tipperary have not gone away. Far from it. But the recent emergence of teams in Munster such as Waterford and Limerick and the continued dominance of Kilkenny and Cork have left the Tipperary hurling faithful wondering if the good times will ever return.