Eamonn Cregan reckons he knows where Limerick went wrong last year. It wasn't a big surprise to most people that his team, an uneasy blend of well-travelled players and a few newcomers, had gone down to Cork although the final margin was as unexpectedly low as it was unjust to Cork's overall domination.

"We did way too much physical training. Coming up to the match against Cork, we were tiring mentally and physically. We didn't do enough hurling because of bad weather, bad pitches, waterlogged pitches. This year we've switched it around and done about a third less physical work and three times as much hurling."

This year's test arrives tomorrow. Waterford are the opponents in the Guinness Munster hurling championship first round. Widely regarded as a coming force, Waterford availed of the championship's new possibilities last summer when reaching their first All-Ireland semi-final in 35 years after losing the Munster and before it the National Hurling League finals.

Against such practised opposition, Limerick have relatively little to recommend them apart from the injury to Waterford's star midfielder Tony Browne. A poor League campaign and the constant suspicion that they aren't quite managing to replace the team whose mid-decade heroics just failed to encompass an All-Ireland.

"We took over a team," says Cregan, "which contained Stephen McDonagh, Ciaran Carey, Mike Houlihan, Declan Nash and Gary Kirby. Although they've been together a long time, the oldest is 32. The others are between 28 and 30. But the rest of the team is early to mid 20s. It's a good blend.

"The young players are good. Good strikers and brave under a falling ball, they're also mobile and fit. It's a better team than last year, more focused and they want to prove themselves."

His optimism goes unreflected in public perception of the match and its likely outcome. But this suits him.

"I've always maintained that supporters put that extra pressure on players. Supporters create this expectation: `ah, we're going to win this easily'. With all that mud flying around, some of it sticks and players aren't 100 per cent geared to winning because they think that they're going to anyway.

"This team knows it has to perform, that it has to raise its game three or four notches. They know that because we went to Dublin in the league full sure we were going to win and got well beaten. A couple of weeks ago we played Dublin in a challenge and won 2-17 to 010 - because we treated Dublin with respect and proved that the result in Parnell Park had been because of a situation we created ourselves."

He took over as manager of Limerick after the unhappy departure of Tom Ryan who was cut loose after winning the 1997 National League title and two Munster championships - but crucially no All-Ireland. In one of the sport's darker ironies, it was Cregan - proud to have been born and bred in Limerick hurling - who masterminded Offaly's 1994 defeat of his own county.

It has been commonly assumed that Cregan took a second spell in charge of Limerick (his first was just over 10 years ago) out of a sense of guilt or a need to atone for his part in the county's traumatic loss in 1994.

"That's been exaggerated. I'd been manager before and decided if I didn't go for it two years ago, I wouldn't be going for it again. I wouldn't be coming back after taking it easy for a couple of years."

More than 18 months into his appointment, Cregan is happy with the progress of the teambuilding. Two under-21s, Brian Begley and Brian Geary, are now on the full-back line. Mark Foley, Young Hurler of the Year in 1996 at wing back, made his debut in the forwards, reverted to half backs but Cregan has restored him to the attack.

"Mark played all his hurling in the forwards with Ahane. It was when he was at Mary I (Mary Immaculate College of Education, coached by Cregan) that I played him in the defence. At the time he wouldn't have got into the county team as a forward. Now he's the type of forward I think we need.

"The performance against Offaly was diabolical. Balls were coming back in on top of the defence as fast as they could clear them. Clem Smith deserves his place on the team anyway and we also need to strengthen the attack. Yes, playing Mark there is a gamble but then we're gambling that the team is the best available."

Although he is upbeat about the trip to Pairc Ui Chaoimh, there is a feeling that the current Limerick job presents a formidable and ultimately doomed challenge to Cregan's managerial acumen. The more experienced players, although few are over 30, have been on the road for so long that mental fatigue has set in.

The younger players are inexperienced and untested at the highest level. The job hasn't been one big seamless chapter of satisfaction for Cregan.

"There have been times when I said what's the point but something always happens and I get refocused. But the GAA is so far behind in its attitude. I'm doing a job which if you were doing in England with a soccer club, you'd be highly paid for it. "From January to date, I've been up the walls. You're involved training and going to matches and watching other players three or four nights a week. You do it for the love of the game but those days are gone.

"Take Jeremy Staunton (outhalf with Garryowen). He's a great player, he played for the Limerick minor footballers and he's comfortable with a football. He can play rugby and get paid or play with the GAA and get two or three tickets and 20 pence a mile travelling expenses. If a young fella has his chance, he'll go for the money because the world is getting more and more materialistic."

What he perceives as the pressures in this direction have, he believes, been exacerbated by the intense demands placed on players by the modern game - a trend he noticed developing even in his own playing career.

"Players aren't going to last more than six years at this fitness level. It takes too much time and jobs and family demands suffer. I was doing something with Brian my youngest and said to Anne, this is great fun - funny I don't remember doing it with any of the others.

"She said `but you weren't around when the others were young'. That was in my day but now it's so much worse. The Clare players are staring to get married and they'll find the demands increasingly difficult.

"It's alright as long as they're winning but I met a Clare player six or eight weeks ago who said that he just dreaded going to training. They've done extremely well but you can't keep up that pace indefinitely."

Tomorrow is the first of the season's really big championship matches. Their All-Ireland runs of recent years brought out Limerick supporters in impressive numbers. Some observers believe that the county is the only one in the Munster championship likely to outnumber Waterford's.

Cregan is less sanguine about his team's likely support - a condition bred by long experience. But cynicism hasn't coloured his hopes for the team as the new season starts.

"I got tickets from the county board and had to give back some of them. The ordinary supporter will go. Those on the periphery who only go when the team starts winning - they're not going and we don't mind. We know where we're going."