What the papers say

Another year, another Cork/Kerry clash and another week in the double life of the Kerryman and Corkman papers. Eamonn Horan and the subbing staff at the papers - essentially two editions of the same paper printed by the same newspaper group - have a tough ask each year: how to present a match preview that sits well with both sets of supporters. Horan's copy, serving both papers, is judiciously moved around to give the necessary Cork or Kerry slant, while the sub-editors have the most fun with their headlines. In one, it's Rebels can defend their crown in Killarney, the other it's Kerry get the nod to shade Killarney thriller. It's not difficult to work out which headline is for which paper. Until next year and the next juggling act . . .

In Clare, it was time for obituaries of sorts. Joe O Muircheartaigh's Clare Champion piece certainly conveyed a feeling that an era had ended. "It (the end) had to come some time. but no time is the right time," he wrote after the defeat by Tipperary. "It seemed as if the Castlelyons Pipe Band had a knowledge of Clare's fate before anyone else. At half-time the played the Boys of the Old Brigade. That was Clare, the boys of the old brigade who had nothing else to give."

Gerry Slevin in the Nenagh Guardian had some harsh words to say to his own supporters following the win. "Reports received this week suggests that some Tipp fans didn't behave themselves in regard to how they treated Clare people in their vicinity on Sunday," Slevin wrote in his front page piece. "One Clare woman, a native of Killaloe and now living in Limerick, broke down when, on the telephone on Monday, she spoke of the viciousness of Tipperary people around her throughout the game. With each Tipperary score she was fed with the vilest of taunts and derisory language."