PUNCHESTOWN at the end of April gives the opportunity for some old scores to be settled and some new rivalries to be established, though there can be a tendency for a few of the main protagonists to be past their best just to complicate matters.

Time analysis should assist in these instances, but Punchestown has proved to be one of the trickier courses at which to establish the merit of overall times over the years. As a result, the following observations about the first two days of action (the remainder will follow in next week’s Time Will Tell column) are a bit more circumspect than usual.