And so Kilkenny were in the  All Ireland Hurling final, again.

Of course we weren’t going to lose, in fact not only were we not going to lose, we were going to make history. Five in a row, never been done. Before the whistle had blown for the match to begin, we had already won. In my eyes we had won almost two weeks previous. I sat in front of my computer and smiled at my genius as I designed tshirts, bookmarks and cards that were to make my millions. Feck the recession, when your from Kilkenny you’ll always have hurling.

Minute by minute as the game played out my jaw began to slacken. Surely not, sure Tipp can’t be that good! No the lads are missing Shefflin, watch they’ll come out the second half and blow those blue and yellow ****** out of the water. Then the second half came and my jaw fell further. When the final whistle blew the room was silent, we lost, never, Kilkenny never loses, it’s not in the blood.

Tipp were walking the steps, blue and yellow jerseys tried to climb the hill barriers and storm the field and it was a Tipp man making the speech, thanking names I’d never heard of. Then it hit me. We’d lost. My tshirts, postcards and bookmarks resigned to history but not in the way I wanted. Millions swept from under my feet in 70 minutes.

The fruits of my optimistic labour are above and if anyone wants a piece of history just give me a bell…