Clare failed to fire but beware Cody team hitting form

We can be very critical of the GAA when it comes to many things, and I include myself in that. At times, I often struggle to see the common sense behind many decisions. But one thing they got 100% spot on is the semi-final weekend.

Having one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday was a fantastic idea. For hurling folk all around the country, every year you know that particular weekend in the GAA calendar is going to be top class. Even if your own county is not involved, you can make a weekend of it.

In saying that, it's such a pity that the cost of living is gone through the roof. I’m not going to break it down to the cent, but if you went to both games and stayed up on the Saturday night, it would cost a fair few quid.

The price of hotel rooms in the big smoke is nothing short of a disgrace. You would want to be planning for it months in advance, but if you do go for the weekend, it’s a feast of hurling. What I found also, is you get to meet loads of genuine GAA people from across the nation.

The first of the games was a game I couldn’t wait for. Two reasons for that: firstly I thought it was going to go down to the last puck of the ball and be a cracker, and secondly, with no vested interest, I didn’t really care who won it.

So it was a case of heading to Croker and taking it all in.

The world and his mother knew Mikey Butler was going to man mark Tony Kelly, and it really worked, again. He really has become one of the best in the game at doing a man-marking job. Before all that, and before any ball was pucked, I was in front of the Clare warm up.

Something I have never done, and could never understand, is why people comment on warm ups. It drives me around the bend: "They were this in the warm up, and they were that".

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