Cork, Clare and Kilkenny are back in the All Ireland semi-finals.

Limerick finish the season with a flourish but are left with nothing but hope for the future, just like last year. Tipperary finish exactly like last year too, taking their leave at the quarter-final stage with no real progress to report.

Galway of the many talents have again gone backwards.

Offaly once more failed to make the last eight despite their promising form during the spring. Only Waterford, by beating Tipp and getting the Croke Park monkey off their backs, have taken a big step forward.

All of which brings me, sadly and predictably, to my native county. The boys of Wexford. We used to fight with heart and hand, as the song goes. We don't any more.

The death of a hurling nation?

Perhaps.

History provides a warning. Ten years ago Laois reached a league semi-final and ran Tipperary close in it, yet nobody outside that county wonders these days about Laois hurling. Its obituary has long been written.

Give it another five years and nobody will be wondering any more about Wexford hurling.

Its obituary will similarly long have been written. Unlessf Last Sunday's hammering by Clare was not merely the least surprising result of the weekend, it was the least surprising result of the summer.

Wexford hurling has been in decline for many years and for a myriad of reasons. The warning signs were well established by the mid-1980s.

At that stage, a small group of concerned hurling folk lobbied intensively for the appointment of a full-time coach with responsibility for underage development in the county. Mick Kinsella was appointed in 1990 and did an excellent job for three years until the county board, in their wisdom, pulled him out, despite the protests of the same small group of concerned hurling folk, in order to make him Wexford's first full-time county GAA secretary. Moneys from central funds for coaching were reallocated to paying salaries.

The salaries were justified.

The diverting of the funding for coaching was not. Look at what's happened since.

It's frustrating to be asked the same question by outsiders over and over again.

"What's wrong with Wexford hurling?" The major problem is that, unlike in practically every other county, nearly all the clubs are dual clubs. Not only that, the strongest clubs are either senior or intermediate in both hurling and football. Voting power at county board level is consequently split 50/50. Playing arrangements and fixtures try to accommodate both codes equally at all times. Therein lies the rub. That's the reality of GAA life in Wexford:

bad enough. But it doesn't work properly for either code:

worse still.

Take this year as an example. You almost certainly know by now that the Wexford minor hurlers lost to Carlow. What you might not know is that the Wexford minor footballers lost to Kilkenny. What is a talented young lad in Wexford in search of sporting excellence to do?

What he may well be tempted to do is to throw his lot in with the soccer fraternity.

Many have. Under the guidance of the dynamic Mick Wallace, who seems to work outside of the soccer establishment, Wexford under-18 soccer teams reach All Ireland finals on a regular basis.

Last year they won the title by beating a team of semi-pros, truly a remarkable achievement. There's nothing wrong with the young people of Wexford, therefore. They're clearly well able to compete. It's just that Wexford GAA's lack of focus has let them down time after time after time.

Or look at Kevin Doyle, a former under-18 Wexford soccer star, he comes on his mother's side from the Kehoes of Cloughbawn, one of the country's most famous camogie families and serial All Ireland medal winners.

Kevin was a fine underage footballer. Now he's following a different kind of dream with Reading FC and Ireland.

I'm looking forward to watching Kevin Doyle light up the Premiership. Forgive me when I say I'm not looking forward quite so much to seeing young Wexford lads try . . .

which naturally they will . . . to emulate him.

If Gaelic games are to prosper in Wexford, they must offer the youth of today and tomorrow a realistic chance of making it to the top. At the moment, and for many years past, they don't and haven't been. Internal GAA complications and playing arrangements are undermining both hurling and football at an alarming rate, a rate that accelerates year after year.

It's as though two captains are standing paralysed on either side of the Titanic, watching the ship go down.

I return with a sinking heart, not for the first time, to the evening after the 1996 All Ireland final. This must be a beginning, I was widely quoted as saying, not an end.

Unfortunately, and to my infinite disappointment, 1996 is in immense danger of being an end. The top counties have upped their standard since then. We have lowered ours.

Where we go from here is anyone's guess and everyone's business. The first step is to stop using the "two codes to manage" mantra as an excuse, for otherwise we'll only succeed in managing both of them into oblivion.

A few years ago I was a member of a committee that sought to ensure that every child in Wexford played one game of hurling every week during the summer. Not too much to ask, surely. We were accused at the time of trying to marginalise football and push it into a different season.

That wasn't our intention, and was never part of our plan. In hindsight, now however, Wexford is crying out for separate seasons, one for hurling and one for football.

Both codes would have a better opportunity to prosper.

Incidentally, underage hurling has just commenced this year in the county. It's almost August. Moreover, no adult championship fixture has been played since May.

And hurling will not commence until mid-August. On top of that, county coaches . . .

part of the National Hurling Development Plan to promote underage hurling . . .

have been appointed for all of Leinster some six months ago. Wexford has still to make an appointment. Enough said.

The simple truth is that if football were banned in Wexford in the morning, the hurlers would be back at or near the top within six or seven years. If hurling were banned, the footballers might be near the top within the same timescale. Neither eventuality will occur, but we still need to think radically.

The answer lies in the hands of the clubs of the county. After all, they're the ones who possess the power at county board level. The playing arrangements they've voted for in the past don't work and must be changed. It must, however, be the right kind of change. Every change in the past in Wexford has been a reaction to the change before it. Every change has been a compromise. Every compromise has set us back farther. Because they tried to satisfy everyone, most of our county chairmen have ended up satisfying nobody.

And under the present system it's virtually impossible for strong leaders to get to the top in Wexford GAA . . . and totally impossible to stay there.

It doesn't have to be this way. We are the boys of Wexford, remember. By fighting with heart and hand we won many a famous battle on the field of play. Time to use our heads now and prove we can fight off it too by making hard decisions. Radical decisions.

Right decisions. In the words of a late and lamented distant son of Wexford, "We do not do these things because they are easy. We do them because they are hard."

Otherwise the death of a proud hurling nation is a foregone conclusion.