SHC Qualifier Round Three: Tom Humphries on the opportunity to make good the semi-final loss to Galway three years ago

Sunday and teatime in Thurles places a full-stop at the end of a weekend of hectic play. Galway and Kilkenny in Semple. There are more storied rivalries but for the modern game few with greater importance attached.

When Kilkenny swatted Galway aside in the 1979 All-Ireland final, they could scarcely have imagined they would be replaced as champions the following year by the maroon interlopers or that Galway would win three All-Irelands in the 80s while they won just two.

For the last quarter of the century Galway have been an annoyance to Kilkenny, a distraction which takes their eyes from the road. In turn Kilkenny have been a benchmark for Galway. The semi-final win of 1986 when Galway cut up and had 11 points to spare by the finish was perhaps the defining moment in the evolution of the side which would win more than anyone over the next few years.

And one thing leads to another. One team draws strength from a previous encounter, extracts motivation from a prior beating.

Tomorrow it's the qualifiers and another unsettled account. Three summers ago Kilkenny were fast-tracked to the pantheon. The greatest forward line ever seen, as they were christened, had romped to the previous year's All-Ireland and had cut through the Leinster championship laying waste to all before them. Casualties in 2000 included nouveau riche outfits like Galway, blown away in the semi-final and Offaly humiliated in the final.

In 2001 they had 12 points to spare on Offaly in the Leinster semi and were 13 clear of Wexford in the final. By the time the All-Ireland semi-final rolled around fears for Galway were so pronounced less than 3,000 travelled from the west to see the carnage. Bookies had Galway at 4-1.

Tomorrow it's the qualifiers. These games are played out on the shady side of the street, unilluminated by the glint of provincial trophies or the fire of hope fuelled by an unbeaten run in knockout competition. Sometimes, as in Killarney today, tradition between cheek-by-jowl neighbours is enough to swell an attendance and the sense of importance. The key game of the weekend, though, belongs to Thurles.

Come September and tomorrow's activity could be more significant than the little squibs of hype preceding it allow. Kilkenny and Galway have influenced each other mightily over the past few years, shaped each other and given each other pause for thought.

Were this game a heavyweight boxing match Galway would enter the ring wearing their League championship belt while Kilkenny would skip the ropes girded by their All-Ireland Championship memento. That tells half the story, however. Kilkenny don't just yearn for the distinction which three in a row bestows upon a team. They owe Galway, the only side this century to have dumped them out of the championship.

"Emotional times, good memories," says Liam Hodgins of that day three years ago when he captained Galway into an All-Ireland final.

"One of those days. Things went very right for us. If you look back, well after the game you'd think everyone played well. I look at the video, though, and see the chances Kilkenny had and missed. And I look at the breaks we got. Eugene (Cloonan) got a goal from 50 or 60 yards out from a free. He kicked in another one almost straight after half-time. We had a bit of luck but I think we were long odds before hand and we needed it."

They had luck but they had a good deal else. The public memory of the sides' encounter in the 2000 semi-final was that Galway hurled for 40 minutes and Kilkenny skinned them for the rest of the day. It was true but is disguised a lot else.

"We learned a lot from 2000," says Hodgins. "Personally, I learned not to mark Henry Shefflin. In 2000 we'd beaten Tipp in the quarter-final. We didn't really do the research on the semi-final. We'd beaten Tipp, a good Tipp team, and we lost the run of ourselves. We didn't do the research and pick up the players we were supposed to pick up. Against Tipp I was on Eugene O'Neill and that was it for the day. We'd planned it.

"Against Kilkenny, then, we went out in formation and our full-back line just got skinned. We had players playing out of position. There was 60 yards of ground in front of us in the full-back line every time they put a ball in. You'd just pray. Brian Cody did the research. He knew our full-back line was there for the taking and he pulled the half-forward line right out. Denis Byrne had a savage game. Henry the same. They turned it on."

There was that, the knowledge they'd gotten it wrong and there was two other games, a league match the previous season in Ballinasloe which Galway had won handily and a challenge earlier in 2001 when Kilkenny had played Galway at a pitch opening in Scarriff. Kilkenny were on the cusp of championship and brought a fit , well-prepared team.

"There was nothing in it between us and we sort of knew that day that we were onto something if we met them again."

And there was the Scarriff factor itself. Mike Mac. Galway did a little over 180 sessions getting ready for the championship of 2001, many of them early in the morning. By the time August 19th came around they were physically strong and psyched.

"We'd come away from Scarriff thinking we'd nothing to lose," says Hodgins "You can give teams too much respect. You let them pick the ball and see what'll do to you with it. The big thing for us was to get in there first, get the tackle in, pull hard and if they haven't the ball in the hand you have a way better chance than trying to get it off them. You can't give Shefflin or DJ the ball. You won't get it back till you have to puck it out."

Cody concedes the differences between the sides on the day and takes the responsibility or the bulk of it on his shoulders.

"I think we came out and we were less fired-up. We were there and mentally we weren't as tuned as we should have been. I hadn't done it properly. There was the fuss in the media, I mean, the things that were being said about the forwards especially and have been said since. It's always a danger. That's the media. It's part and parcel of it. It's my job to make sure that reality is always there. Perhaps we didn't get it right that time."

The physical hunger in Galway was evident from the beginning. Well from just before it. Having exploded onto the Croke Park pitch there was an outburst of pulling and shoving before the ball could be thrown in. John Power ended up with a broken stick. Brian McEvoy ended up on the ground. Then the game was on.

For an underdog team things certainly broke kindly for Galway. Early on Cloonan had a 45-metre free which he thumped with a low trajectory. The sun caught James McGarry's eyes and the ball landed in the net.

Even when things went wrong they went right. During the early freneticism Shefflin and Greg Kennedy got booked for a little off the ball argy-bargy. In the 29th minute a challenge by Kennedy on Carey (made to look worse by the manner in which DJ accidentally stumbled into Kennedy's challenge) saw Kennedy sent off.

Kennedy had been flying all year and brought a necessary mixture of size and aggression to the Galway defence. Kilkenny pointed the free and then got a 21-metre free within seconds.

DJ went for it. Galway blocked it. "That was a huge turning point," says Hodgins, "it rallied us. A boost. We felt we'd go for it then. That was a big thing afterwards. We beat Kilkenny with 14. With hardly any Galway supporters at it."

"I don't think I handled the spare-man situation as well as I could have, perhaps," says Cody, "I'm not all to blame but I didn't have a good day. It's down to preparation. If you're prepared for every eventuality you have some chance. We were badly beaten in all aspects. People say it haunts me. I watched the video at Christmas that year. I watched it a couple of times since. It doesn't haunt me but it isn't my favourite video either."

At half-time the Galway dressing-room was surprisingly serene. No panic. "With Noel Lane and Mike Mac there was never any hurls broke in the dressing-room," says Hodgins. "We regrouped. Talked . We went for a two-man full-forward line and decided there was no point in hitting it straight down to their spare man who they put between the full backs and the half backs. No point in hitting big, high ball in unless you had to. And Joe Rabbitte was a big addition in fairness. He was a target man in there. If you had to hit it in high Joe would be under it. Higher the better sometimes."

After half-time, as Galway had expected, Kilkenny stormed the rampart for 10 minutes. Galway weathered it. The backs, midfield and wing forwards were all defending. Kevin Broderick got a point that day from maybe 80 yards back, which was where he was tracking back to. Galway grew into the game and its demands. Afterwards in the dressing-room five or six players started cramping up badly. They'd had to work that hard.

The result changed things. Galway felt they had an All-Ireland coming. They came up against a better prepared Tipp team in the final and got back in line. 2002 was a disaster, filled with distractions like the great Kerins football experiment. 2003 brought new management, new faces. A lot of experience tossed out with the bathwater. This year is the first year since that Galway have felt focused and right.

And in there way a reformed Kilkenny side. In 2001 Kilkenny faced Richie Murray and Dave Tierney in midfield. McEvoy and Andy Comerford were both substituted. Lots of Kilkenny names never truly thrived after that day. Charlie Carter and McEvoy were on the road to disillusionment. Stephen Grehan ploughed on for a while, Byrne, who scored eight points in the 2000 game, now hurls with Tipp. Philly Larkin and Eamonn Kennedy vanished from the half-back line and eventually vanished entirely.

Kilkenny honed their edge more assiduously in training. Players speak now of the edge which is always there when the team trains and plays practice games. Cody is reluctant to freight tomorrow's encounter with too much significance, though. "That's the general perception, I think, that we changed, went for bigger players and got more physical. It never occurred to me as such. We'd won 2000, we were beaten in 1999 and had been beaten in 1998 before I came. The team was on the go for a while. After 2001 we went for the best players possible. I've said a few things about it since then. I felt I had failed at my job. I had sent out the team and they weren't as prepared as they should have been. I didn't want that to ever happen again."

"I doesn't have to be players who are to blame. Not necessarily. On the day I wouldn't have been looking at the players. I felt it was my job to get them out there. I hadn't done it as well as I should have done it.

"Much has been said about training for the last two years. In 2000 the team was so focused there was no need for anyone to be there to blow the whistle. The motivation and the desire was absolute and total. We didn't alter the drills especially."

Three years on and Hodgins is recovering from a cruciate injury which has kept him from the game for nine months. He recognises Galway are different, Kilkenny altered. He thought Galway would have won an All-Ireland by now. Still hope is eternal. He figures Galway have the stronger bench tomorrow and an equal urge. The rest is on the field.

"It's different this year. Kilkenny have their backs to the wall. They'll be out for the three in a row, they'll have been thinking about it for a long time. I think what happened in 2001 has motivated them. They owe us big time. They haven't had the chance in the championship since 2001. They have played in the league but a good few of the Kilkenny players went after that match. It was a wake-up call. "

And so it goes on. Tit for tat. Another instalment.

25 years of rivalry

1979 All-Ireland final Kilkenny 2-12 Galway 1-09

1982 All-Ireland semi-final Kilkenny 2-20 Galway 2-10

1986 All-Ireland semi-final Galway 4-12 Kilkenny 0-13

1987 All-Ireland final Galway 1-12 Kilkenny 0-09

1992 All-Ireland semi-final Kilkenny 2-13 Galway 1-12

1993 All-Ireland final Kilkenny 2-17 Galway 1-15

1997 All-Ireland quarter-final Kilkenny 4-15 Galway 3-16

2000 All-Ireland semi-final Kilkenny 2-19 Galway 0-17

2001 All-Ireland semi-final Galway 2-15 Kilkenny 1-13