Three teams came to Croke Park looking for some form of redemption and another on a lap of honour, which they duly achieved with flying colours, but only one of the others found what they wanted.
It has been a sub-plot of the championship as to how the provincial championships measure up to each other. I had come to the suspicion that although Leinster wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as Munster and certainly not in the same category as a score-fest, it had been tougher and more intense.
That was more or less vindicated by the first quarter-final between Kilkenny and Cork. At first it looked like Cork were more menacing and better at creating space for the likes of Darragh Fitzgibbon and Mark Coleman to get on the ball and there were red lights flashing inside with Patrick Horgan and Alan Cadogan unmarkable.
They made a great start but inevitably Kilkenny dug in and Cork had problems. The team missed goals by taking wrong options and ultimately undermined themselves by bad wides and poor decision making. Too many players were not playing well and Mark Ellis was under pressure even if Stephen McDonnell's hard work marking TJ Reid was a rare positive for them.
This was the strongest Kilkenny team of the championship and there was an expectation of improved performance based on the likely contributions of Cillian Buckley, Richie Hogan and Walter Walsh.
Physical presence
It didn’t work out for Buckley, whose return from injury has been fitful, but Hogan took his goal well and looks to be coming back into form at just the right time and there was a huge contribution from Walsh when he came on for the second half and was able to use his physical presence to disrupt the Cork defence.
The second-half response of Kilkenny was emphatic and they destroyed the Cork re-starts. When Anthony Nash went short, he used Seán O'Donoghue, who got caught in possession and was turned over, and when he went long Kilkenny were eating the puck-outs.
They managed just one point in 20 minutes and then Horgan, unusually on the day, hit a desperately poor wide and the whole game looked as if it was over. It was to his credit that he ended up inspiring the Cork comeback but ultimately Kilkenny seized the day.
They were cynical when they had to be and knew how to battle whereas maybe we've seen this before from Cork – disappointing ends to the season in Croke Park. Conor Lehane was replace again on Sunday and when the chips were down, there was too much inconsistency across the team performance.
They were massively dependent on Horgan to pull them through and he gave a tour de force, in fairness to him, but on the day Kilkenny looked to be an improving force, with their injuries clearing up among experienced players.
This win was all the more impressive for the fact that TJ Reid wasn't expected to fight fires all around the place. He was well man-marked again, this time by Stephen McDonnell but whereas against Wexford when Matt O'Hanlon did well on him, he didn't have the support, this time he did and Brian Cody will be rightly pleased.
They've found the much sought-after redemption but more crucially they have momentum and while Limerick are still All-Ireland favourites, you know 100 per cent that they're in for a major battle against Kilkenny in the semi-final – at the very minimum.
Heroics
The second quarter-final was always going to be a difficult match for Tipperary. They were always expected to win and there had been a lot of love for Laois after their heroics the previous week.
More worrying from a Tipp perspective is the ever more pronounced lack of pattern to their play. They got the early couple of goals and looked like they should kick on from there but their problems were almost exacerbated in the second half after Laois lost a man.
At this stage there's a conflict of styles on the Tipperary side, really. They haven't embraced the demands of the short game, playing through the lines, as other teams – even Kilkenny to a certain extent – have because they should have been able to work the ball through from the puck-out.
They had a couple of spare men in defence and should have been able to build it from there but that wasn’t happening. That’s a key worry.
The second concern I’d have is the concession of frees, which was the Achilles heel of an otherwise strong display in Cork back in May. You could say that the referee was much too fussy and there’s no doubt about that but at the same time, Tipperary are simply conceding too many frees. That’s been a trend, regardless of the refereeing.
I didn’t expect them to respond well to the defeat in Limerick because the lost momentum was always going to be a problem but I thought that there would be some signs of recovery. Instead many of the same players who under-performed in Limerick, didn’t find anything better against Laois.
It's worth remarking on how hard Laois fought after three incredibly intense weeks. Ross King took his goal very well and Mark Kavanagh punished the Tipp indiscipline.
After a brilliant season under Eddie Brennan, the lap of honour was richly deserved.
