Whenever you have teams like Cork and Clare, with two contrasting styles, in a Munster final then you can look forward to a tactically enthralling game. And while this may not be the spectacle that everybody wants to see, I think it will be tense, hard and as close as it gets.

There are plenty of areas where these teams are evenly matched. For a start, the Cork backs are big and strong, very similar in height and strength to the Clare half-back line. Overall I feel Clare probably have the six best backs in the country but right now Cork are very close behind. Diarmuid O'Sullivan in particular is a tremendous full back and Brian Corcoran in front of him is also one of the team's linchpins.

At midfield, however, Clare have Ollie Baker and Colin Lynch and I believe they are the best pair around bar none, and have been since 1997. Cork did reasonably well against Waterford at midfield, especially Michael O'Connell. He ended up scoring a lot simply because he drifted off the Waterford centrefield pairing and picked up a lot of ball to drive it over the bar. But I don't think he will get the same sort of space against Clare.

One of the positional changes Cork have made this year is to put Joe Deane at full forward. If you look back at the Waterford match, Cork played two in the full-forward line, Ben O'Connor and Deane. The idea there was to send in the ball low, create some space, and for the two players to come out and pick it up; but that didn't work as well as they hoped.

For both teams, then, so much will depend on how well the forwards can be supplied with ball. That really is where the game will be won or lost, and the first touch will be vital. It will be especially interesting to see how Clare perform without Jamesie O'Connor. He is the type of player that is always there to receive passes if a man is in trouble and the rest of the forwards will have to up their performances to play as well without him.

Still, I'm sure they've been told that and it is amazing how players can improve when they are forced to take on new responsibilities. For example, when Limerick played Tipperary in the Munster final without Gary Kirby a few years ago, the forwards lifted themselves enough to win without the so-called scorer.

If Barry Murphy does start at full forward for Clare, I think he will go out the field and bring O'Sullivan with him. But I would be concerned as to whether the Clare forwards can perform as well as they did in the replay with Tipperary.

Against that, I don't see Clare giving the Cork forwards the sort of space they got against Waterford. Clare looked at the situation going into the second game with Tipperary and played accordingly. Clare's big strength has always been their intelligence and once they see the pattern of play then they can adapt. We saw that in the replay when they came out to prove the first day was a flash in the pan.

It's interesting to see Enda Flannery at centre forward, if he starts there, in that he will probably play both an attacking and defensive role. He's young, yet very strong, and his objective will be to win high ball and prevent Brian Corcoran from catching and that will prevent a lot of ball coming into the Cork forwards.

Overall, the Cork forwards are very skilful hurlers, and I think Fergal McCormack will be the man to break up the play for the likes of Seanie McGrath and Ben O'Connor. McGrath will drift, waiting for the breaking ball, but Clare are aware of his type of game. Timmy McCarthy has a tendency to run with the ball and sometimes he can let that slip. Against the experience of this Clare team, it will be very difficult and the Cork forwards can expect to be under a lot of pressure from the start.

Besides the confrontation of Corcoran at centre back and Flannery at centre forward, I think Seanie McMahon against McCormack will be a very close dual. McGrath has also gone over to the left side of the field away from Anthony Daly and onto Liam Doyle but that's going from one great wing back to another. Doyle is a slow starter but once he gets going he will always play exceptionally well.

For Cork to win this, their forwards will really need to be on song. They'll more or less have to put everything over the bar and they'll have to be stopping the Clare half backs from clearing the ball. There is talk that Corcoran is the only player to experience a Munster final before but these players have come through minor and under-21 championships and they have the experience on the sideline as well. They are coming in as underdogs but sometimes that is the best way to do it.

A lot may depend on the weather as well because if it rains over the weekend then the pitch will be heavy and that will suit Clare. It's hard to see Clare losing, especially if they avoid hitting too many wides. They just continue to impress although we won't really know how tired they are until later in the championship.

Either way, there's no way Clare will be holding back. They want to be known as the first Clare team that won three titles on the trot and that's just another reason they will probably snatch it.

In an interview with Ian O'Riordan