Clare manager Davy Fitzgerald would love the opportunity to repeat yesterday's victory over Kilkenny later in the year. Any win over Kilkenny is nice, Fitzgerald acknowledged, but he knows teams of Clare and Kilkenny's ilk are judged on summer days.

“It’s a nice victory, thoroughly deserved,” Fitzgerald smiled. “Our work rate today was savage, our hooks, blocks and tackles were way up. The lads played with savage pride and heart, I couldn’t say enough about them.”

And then, the note of caution. “This is April, like,” Fitzgerald stressed. “I’d love to have the opportunity later in the year to meet Kilkenny. There was one or two quotes used during the week, that we might as well not turn up today. I thought it was very disrespectful. I don’t think we’re a bad team. I think we’ve showed that over the last number of years. We’re not full of it but I think when we’re right, we’ll compete and that’s what we did today.

“We’re not going to be fooled by today, we know the quality that’s in Kilkenny, we know the quality that’s out there amongst a number of teams . . . We’re going to play the league final on its merits in two weeks’ time. We’ll just see what happens then.”

Mind games

Not ideal, perhaps, that championship opponents

Waterford

will provide the opposition on May 1st, five weeks before the counties joust in the Munster semi-final. The mind games have begun in earnest ahead of that league decider, but Kilkenny manager

Brian Cody

was forthright in his post-match assessment.

“No excuses, no nothing else about it,” was the Cody verdict. “They got on top of the game early and they played very, very well. The scoreline is a fair reflection of the way the game went.”