Ciarán Murphy: There’s a wonkiness to the All-Ireland club championships, but it works

It was about 8pm last Saturday, and I was in the Croke Park Hotel trying to make sense of what I’d seen across the road for the previous four hours. Kilbrittain had won a thrilling All-Ireland Junior Club Hurling final, beating Easkey of Sligo by a point, and Tipperary’s Upperchurch/Drombane had beaten Tooreen of Mayo after extra-time in the intermediate final. I was with TG4 analyst Jamie Wall, brother of the Kilbrittain captain Philip, when a man came over to speak to him (everyone wanted to speak to Jamie on Saturday evening). He was from Glenullin, who were going to have their big moment in the intermediate football final the following day. We were all, I suppose, trying to put words on...