We want the championship back – fast.

Last Sunday in Thurles was as phoney as phoney gets. No pulling punches - anybody who was in attendance could sue under the misuse of trade descriptions act. Billed as a Munster Championship contest, it was more akin to a National League encounter in late winter.

The atmosphere was as far removed from a decade ago as one could imagine. Remember the 1999 Munster Final, when a packed Thurles witnessed the reigning champions Clare going for three-in-a-row (yes, it’s true). The Town End was packed with Rebels, resplendent in their blood red shirts, caps and flags. The roar that greeted every score was guttural, the old ground shook. Ditto the Killinan End, where the Saffron and Blue packed in closely.

It felt like an occasion, an event that you were privileged to attend. Granted, this was a Munster Final, and it is unfair to compare last Sunday to it – but still, the contrast was marked. An attendance of 23,000 compared to over 50,000 in 1999? Where have all the people gone?

Today there are no characters in the game – even Davy Fitzgerald, who was a perennial figure between the posts for 16 years, was absent (imagine if he had been stuck in the middle of that ‘schemozzle’ before the start). Today it’s bland, nobody wanting to put a foot wrong in the media, treading carefully, watching their back.

How we recall those crazy days of the nineties, when Ger Loughnane held a whole county in raptures speaking of priests and conspiracies in that mad summer of ’98. Remember those trips to Cork for the seemingly annual joust between Clare and Tipperary? Or that sun kissed day in ’96 when the Banner lost their crown in glorious fashion to a majestic Ciaran Carey point (that was drama, the killer instinct of the old Munster Championship at its best).

The current hurling structure is killing the Munster Championship – forget Leinster, as that has been in a state of Rigor Mortis for years. Since the current convoluted structure was introduced there has been a dilution of the magic of the championship. De Scribe though felt that the new system was worth continuing with – until last Sunday, when the evidence could no longer be ignored.

Such is the current system that Clare may be better off to have lost their match with Cork, as they now face the ridiculously easy task of finishing in the top two of a group that contains Galway, Antrim and Laois in order to qualify for the All-Ireland Quarter Final stage. Had they advanced further in Munster they would have faced more serious opposition in their path.

Last Sunday was not a championship occasion. The buzz was absent, the day devoid of any sense of anticipation. The Clare support was low on numbers, as the Killinan End looked grey and bare. Where has the colour and the craic gone? There wasn’t a bodhrán in sight, another tradition of championship time that is beginning to die away…

We all know what preceded the game itself, that ugly confrontation between both sides as they entered the coliseum. It was ironic that this was as passionate as the contest became. Once the ball was thrown in a sense of apathy engulfed the match, and long before the conclusion most of us had lost any real interest in the action that was unfolding before our eyes.

How did it come to this? The Munster Championship is meant to be special, treasured and cherished, handed down from generation to generation. On Sunday we were sold a pup, a real bitch.

Barely a murmur from the crowd for the majority of proceedings, little doubt as to the eventual outcome of the match, no sense of drama that one would expect to experience if it was a straight knockout contest.

Loughnane was right when he said that the championship doesn’t truly begin until July – last Sunday was just a warm-up, and it felt cold.