Mostly Hurling:So the promos for this year's championship are almost all in the can. The scene will soon be set for the trailers to appear on our screens. Then come late July we'll have all the entries for this year's festival on show before the main event in early September.

And what have we learned? Or more importantly, what have team managements learned from these promos thus far? Did the recent league semi-finals reveal much?

Well, the old order still looks like prevailing. As I said a few weeks ago, Kilkenny again are setting the standard. Any team that can lose two giants of the game - DJ Carey and Peter Barry - one year and win all competitions on offer the next year have to be the standard setters. They made the transition almost seamlessly.

This season looks no different. They lined out in the league semi-final without Henry Shefflin, James Ryall and James McGarry from last year's All-Ireland team. Michael Kavanagh also didn't start. Nor did the Reid brothers, who were very impressive in the recent club championships. Yet they won pulling up, by 15 points.

Brian Hogan and John Tennyson were very solid in the central defensive roles in Thurles, as were Willie O'Dwyer and Derek Lyng in the middle of the field. I like watching Eoin Larkin. He is always industrious. He has those quick wrists most Kilkenny hurlers get at baptism. He was involved in many of the scores.

Brian Cody certainly has the strongest panel in the country.

I don't have to tell John Meyler he has problems, even though his team have certainly made progress. They just weren't allowed to perform against Kilkenny. The champions have call on so many top-quality players that they are threatened only when playing below themselves against opposition playing above themselves. That did not happen in Thurles.Wexford should not be too hard on themselves.

Cork have found no new forwards except Patrick Cronin. Replacing players like Brian Corcoran, Pat Mulcahy and Wayne Sherlock takes time. They can, however, be pleased with their efforts against Waterford. It was worth the admission charge just to see Donal Óg Cusack's point-blank save from John Mullane.

What about Waterford? Well there was a great deal of pressure on them to beat Cork in that semi-final. Losing was not an option. They had lost their three previous championship games with the Leesiders. If they had lost this one there would have been serious doubts in the players' minds about the present team ever beating Cork.

There was little in it though, and I don't mean just on the scoreboard. The teams were very evenly matched for most of the 70 minutes.

The Déise will have to improve if they hope to beat Kilkenny on Sunday or Cork if they meet in the championship. And yet if their seasoned players perform or are let perform they are an excellent team.

Waterford hurling needs a national victory. This very good team needs a national victory. The hurling world in general needs to see Kilkenny are beatable.Will they beat Kilkenny? I think they have a great chance. Waterford have a big, strong forward line. They are good in the air. We all know how important it is to win most of the puck-outs and the Déise forwards are more than capable of doing it. Also, if their half-back line cut down the supply to Kilkenny's inside line I can see them winning the day. The young heroes of De La Salle might have started a historic week for Waterford hurling.

From the evidence of the league, of the new pretenders to the throne, only Wexford might feel they have progressed. Kilkenny, Waterford and Cork are still at the head of the field. Galway and Tipperary are next. Clare and Wexford, with Limerick an outside bet, are the only others with a chance of ultimate glory this year.

In this ash-and-sliotar world there is a tendency to judge teams on their last game only. Dublin were being written up earlier in the year; now they are gone off the radar. Galway have Ger Loughnane so were being tipped for stardom but their star seems to have fallen steeply.

There seems to be a feeling in Tipp that they are not sure where they are at right now. Clare might be dark horses for a bit of a run. Waterford will show us where they are at on Sunday. Cork are Cork and with their pedigree cannot be written off. Even before the race starts all other teams bar those mentioned above are also-rans. Kilkenny, though, have to be hot favourites.

All that being said, every team has to have the hope that on a given day they will outplay their opponents, even if those opponents are Kilkenny. We all know how unpredictable sport can be. Come late July and knock-out time, will the hurling horizon be different? Probably not, but on any given Sunday anything can happen.

So it's camera, lights and action for another (hopefully) great, unscripted drama in Thurles on Sunday.

I referred in my column last week to the use of sliotars in last year's championship matches. Pat Daly, a Waterford man who heads the national games committee at Croke Park, did comment on the particular incident at the time and I've no difficulty in acknowledging that he did so impartially as head of the committee.