Munster SHC First round: And suddenly it's here. Unlike the football last week, the Guinness All-Ireland hurling championship begins with a clash of two top-eight teams and after a quiet few weeks, it's estimated that up to 30,000 will attend the first big match of the summer season.
Championship is in some ways a great liberator for teams. Freed from the stigma of whatever consensus emerges from the National League, Tipperary and Limerick know tomorrow in Thurles sets the tone for their year.
The opportunity to put the league in the past is more of a comfort for Tipperary than for Limerick whose unbeaten run to the final did much to create momentum for the idea of a team finally on the up. Nonetheless instinct points to there being less between their respective trajectories than performances during the spring might indicate.
Managers Joe McKenna and Babs Keating had divergent agendas. McKenna needed Limerick to develop confidence and a belief in themselves, a process that leads to the targeting of results and, to be fair to them, they accomplished that. Keating needed to trawl the county and started 30 players and arguably grew more depressed than enlightened. But the purpose was to assess what was there with a view to the summer and despite this Tipp still managed to make the play-offs.
There's no point in trying to create an equivalence between the two in the league. Limerick drew with Kilkenny and lost the final to the same team after a battling display, played out in the absence of their top scorer. Tipperary were murdered - twice! - by Kilkenny. When the teams played each other in the league it was a draw, meaning that within the past 12 months the sides have drawn twice in their three competitive meetings. Tipperary won the other, last year's Munster replay, by a point after extra time.
Comparing the sides since, it's fair to point out Limerick's improvement but it also has to be taken into account the team's best player from 2005, Peter Lawlor, isn't playing this year. Not all of the other readjustments are for the better. Stephen Lucey was exceptional at full back last year; now he is needed in attack. There are other questions Limerick have to answer if they are to break the five-year sequence since their last championship win, the memorable comeback that beat Waterford in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Ability to turn possession into scores is still a problem and although the alibi there was Mark Keane's injury, now apparently cleared up, they still have to improve their conversion rate. Twelve months ago they had also apparently registered a major improvement since narrowly losing to Tipp in the 2004 qualifiers. And on the day Tipperary were wretched. Yet they drew. Will they be as poor tomorrow?
Assume once again Damien Reale picks up Eoin Kelly, Limerick still need to get on top at centrefield to prevent the sort of supply Kelly received in the early stages of that match a year ago, a turnaround they managed then.
They will need the in-form Conor Fitzgerald to repeat the display that saw Eamonn Corcoran replaced. Mark Foley and TJ Ryan are tough enough to withstand the physical challenge of Diarmaid Fitzgerald and Michael Webster, a hard winter improving his touch in the handball alley behind him, but is Foley, like Keane carrying a swiftly-recovered groin injury, up to the demands on his mobility?
Limerick are fitter and more resilient than last year but in its way the Tipp selection looks more adaptable. Form says Limerick; home advantage, being underdogs and the recent record between the counties - point to Tipp. But realistically if Limerick can't make the breakthrough in these circumstances they will be disappointed.
LIMERICK: B Murray; D Reale, TJ Ryan, M Foley; O Moran, B Geary, D Moloney; P O'Grady, D O'Grady; D Ryan, S Lucey, C Fitzgerald; A O'Shaughnessy, B Begley, M Keane.
TIPPERARY: B Cummins; D Fanning, P Maher, P Curran; E Corcoran, C O'Mahoney, H Moloney; S McGrath, C Morrissey; J Carroll, G O'Grady, J O'Brien; D Fitzgerald, M Webster, E Kelly.
