What an excellent sporting weekend that just was. Clare won their hurling match agains Galway. The temperature was raised during the week when Ger Loughnane gave a spicy interview to the Clare Champion newspaper calling for the Clare County Board Manager to step down and said that Player Power was the order of the day when Anthony Daly was in charge of the team. Not something that Daly liked. I think he said that Loughnane was childish in response. anyway, Clare won the match and now look likely to overcome Laois and come out top of their division in the back door system. This means, I suspect that they will play Laois next and then Limerick after that. Great stuff.

Formula 1 was pretty good today, with a Ferrari win for Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonzo coming second and wunderkind Lewis Hamilton coming third. Hamilton is still top of the driver standings.

Tennis was magnificent today with the men’s final between, yes you guessed it, Rafa and Roger. It was 2 sets all and 2 games all in the last set when Federer found that little bit of extra something and the last set slipped away from Nadal. Five in a row now for Federer and this equals Bjorn Borg’s record. Borg was in the crowd to see it happening. Here’s hoping that Nadal is back next year and here’s hoping for more fireworks.

The Munster hurling final was full of fireworks. Not the stylish kind of match that we might expect, but excellent and exciting all the same. Waterford won in the end and by a margin that flattered somewhat (Waterford 3-17, Limerick 1.14). Dan Shanahan scored a magnificent 3-3. Got to hand it to Munster hurling.