If the GAA's proposed structural changes do take effect in the coming years, then whatever other benefits may result, we will nonetheless be robbed of the Saturday evening replay - in the football championship at least. Some of the most thrilling games in hurling and football in recent years have come in Saturday evening replays. Teams have loosened up a bit. They are less cagey around each other. Goals frequently come thick and fast. Here's six of the best.
2013 All-Ireland hurling final
The 2013 All-Ireland hurling series, greatly enjoyed at the time by a watching public drunk on novelty, has been robbed of some of its sheen by the abject failure of that summer's leading lights to back up their performances in that hottest of summers in the years since.
Hurling was on drugs, as observed by my colleague Donny Mahoney. Mood altering rather than performance enhancing drugs, we hasten to add.
Dublin appeared close to a historic breakthrough at All-Ireland level. Since then they have slipped back into the pack, shipping heavy defeats against Kilkenny, Tipperary and Galway in the years since. The graph is trending downwards at the moment.
While Limerick's performance levels remained high in 2014, the last two year's has witnessed steep decline. They have failed to escape 1B and now find themselves close to the bottom of the pile of the top tier hurling counties.
Cork hurling, having plumped fresh depths this year, is now mired in a never-ending crisis, leaving people baffled as to how they scaled such heights that summer.
Even more mystifying than that is Clare's strange underachievement following their All-Ireland win. For some counties an All-Ireland win is a springboard to dominance. Not so in Clare. Since that day in September 2013, they've only beaten Offaly, Laois and Limerick in championship terms. Two effective minnows and one misfiring county with problems of their own.
It's a long way from that thrilling goalfest on the final Saturday of September 2013. All was well with both counties. Clare, with their rich stream of underage success were going to dominate hurling for years. The empire struck back quick enough.
2014 All-Ireland football semi-final
Limerick was a divisive enough choice for the All-Ireland semi-final replay. Kerry people were quietly happy with the venue. Mayo supporters, almost universally, were noisily unhappy with the venue, arguing, not unreasonably, that Kerry play at the Gaelic Grounds regularly while it was strange terrain for Mayo fans.
Most of them came away cursing the venue and the day and, most of all, the referee Cormac Reilly. His name is burned into the memories of most Mayo fans, and presumably will be for a long time. Mayo got the rough end of most of the decisions that day.
A series of highly contentious calls, particularly in the first half of extra-time, cost them in a tight finish. But while Mayo were rueing everything about that day, many neutrals were thrilled by the spectacle and the pulsating atmosphere generated in the smaller ground.
2007 Munster hurling semi-final
Neither county were thought to be in rude health at the outset of the championship season. Limerick had gone six years without winning a match in the Munster championship.
In Tipperary, Babs Keating found he couldn't gel with the young men playing inter-county hurling as he had with their predecessors twenty years earlier. He ended up wishing he hadn't come back.
Limerick weathered a shocking start the first day to haul themselves back into contention by the early stages of the second half. Still they trailed by three as the game ticked towards a finale. Pat Tobin blasted a goal in the final minute after being laid on by Ollie Moran. They met the following Saturday in a glorious and ultimately inconclusive replay.
Once again, Tipp couldn't shake off Limerick. Babs told Brendan Cummins he'd a seat for him on the bench the following week. His replacement Gerry Kennedy did reasonably well, saving a penalty from Andrew Shaughnessy. As the game hit 70 minutes, Tipp led 1-19 to 1-15. Remarkably, from this position, Limerick forced extra-time without even the filip of a goal. Ollie Moran shot three points in rapid quick time and in the final seconds, Shaughnessy won a free, and forced extra-time.
Limerick looked stronger and more powerful in extra-time but an Eoin Kelly three-pointer tilted it Tipp's way. Again it was Shaughnessy who denied Tipp victory with a 65.
Tipperary led 2-13 to 0-17 with ten minutes remaining. Once again, they finished poorly. Limerick hit five straight points in a brilliant finish.
Improbably, they would travel all the way to the All-Ireland final, beating Waterford in a surreal and high scoring semi-final. The final was a bridge too far. They battled well after early sucker punches but were also held at arm's length.
For Tipp, the end of Babs was nigh. Wexford confirmed it in inauspicious circumstances the next day out. The departure was not amicable judging by his comments about the Tipperary players in the years since.
2015 All-Ireland football semi-final
The organisers of Electric Picnic abandoned their hostility to showing sport on the big screen for the Dublin-Mayo semi-final replay on the Saturday of the festival last year.
On a blazing sunny day, there were a roughly even amount of Dublin and Mayo jerseys (probably slightly more Dubs) gathered around the big screen which was transmitting the Sky Sports coverage of the semi-final.
Previously, they had told people anxious to see the All-Ireland hurling final to more or less piss off to nearby Stradbally. This is a music festival.
Maybe, it was the Dubs that prompted their change in policy.
They didn't know it at the time but it was Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly's last game as Mayo manager. Their players had a fair idea. Joe Brolly didn't hesitate to stick his boot into Mayo's carcass, dubbing them 'the masters of disaster'.
2014 All-Ireland hurling qualifier
People were still minded to regard Clare's deeply underwhelming defence of their title as mere evidence of a post-All-Ireland hangover and not anything more long-lasting than that.
Two years later, that verdict now looks excessively generous. Wexford enjoyed an unforseen renaissance in the qualifiers that year after Leinster championship defeat at home to Wexford.
In Cusack Park, they drew 2-25 apiece after a game which went to extra-time. The following week there was more extra-time.
Clare did well enough to force extra-time at all, given they lost Jack Browne and Brendan Bugler to red cards in normal time. In extra-time, a Harry Kehoe goal and a late blitz of points from Jack Guiney gave Wexford a nourishing win.
They would go on to topple Waterford, still feeling their way in the first year of the Derek McGrath revolution. Against Limerick in the Thurles quarter-final, they were hit for a few goals and soundly beaten.
2016 All-Ireland hurling semi-final
The hurling gods were smiling on us from August onwards this year. The final four championhip matches of the season rescued what had been a wretched year up until that point.
We thought we'd been spoiled by the thrilling drawn semi-final between Kilkenny and Waterford. We were denied only the fairytale finish of a Waterford win.
The build-up to the replay was soundtracked by the familiar hum of regret and dread that Waterford had blown their chance the first day.
Happily, it became apparent early doors we were going to get a contest. We got a sensational match.
