AT THE start of the year, Cork and Waterford were the clear favourites for the Munster hurling title. With those two already gone, Clare and Limerick will both fancy their chances of winning the final against Tipperary. Of course, they'll have to get there first.

That's what makes tomorrow's game in Thurles so intriguing. Limerick against Clare has traditionally been a hard call. It's one of the old-style Munster derbies, and could bounce either way. We've seen that over the last two years. Last year, Limerick hammered them, and Clare lost a manager. The year before that Clare hammered them, and Limerick lost a manager.

It's clearly a serious game for both teams.

However, there is so much uncertainty about Limerick's form of late all you really have to go on with them is trust. If you could trust them to repeat the performance of last year's All-Ireland semi-final win over Waterford then they'd have enough to beat Clare, but I don't think anyone could really have that level faith in them at the moment.

They had a poor league, and we've already seen how Waterford tried to flick the switch after an inconsistent league, but there was nothing there. There's been a bit of that about Limerick this year. I saw them against Tipp early in last year's league, and they were outstanding. You knew there was some drive and buzz about them. There was none of that in the league this year. Granted, they were very experimental, and tried a lot of players, but still they never showed any pattern, and were badly beaten in a lot of games. That's never good for morale either.

And after their trawl for new players, probably the best they found was Wayne McNamara, and he's out injured. Two of their bigger players last year were Brian Geary and Brian Begley, and they're out too. So there is that great unknown about them right now. Their forward line doesn't look as dangerous without Begley. I know he has his critics, but he still brings something to Limerick at full forward, a real target man, that maybe Seán O'Connor doesn't.

I'd also be surprised if Limerick hit the ground running. They're typically slow to get going anyway, and if you go back to last year's series of games with Tipperary, it was only towards the end of those games they really started to flow. And even at that, they were still bringing some good momentum from the league. So you just don't know how flowing they can be over the 70 minutes.

At least we know a little bit more about what we're going to get with Clare, and that's without even reading too deeply into the win over Waterford. You know they'll take some confidence from that, but you also know they'll work very hard, they have big, physical forwards, and they're very, very fit.

As it turned out, Waterford's commitment in that game was fairly pathetic. They gave Clare far too much space, didn't close down, and one thing for sure is Clare won't score 2-26 tomorrow.

The Waterford backs were very poor, but that's not saying Clare wouldn't have been right up there even if Waterford had played very well. So Clare would have come out of that game very happy. There's a good mood in the set-up now, something which wasn't there last year.

If Limerick had a fully fit panel, and showed better league form, they'd be good enough to beat Clare. But in talking about Limerick's chances there is very little evidence to go on. On that basis I'd have a slight fancy for Clare.

But you couldn't write off Limerick. They still have the bones of the defence that closed down practically every team last year, with the exception of Kilkenny, who only really got away from them in the first 10 minutes of the All-Ireland.

Clare are no Kilkenny either, so I wouldn't absolutely write off Limerick. But their league form was worse than last year, so that does suggest they've gone back a little. I suspect they're coming in as much in the dark about their form as the rest of us are.

Clare are missing corner back Darragh Clancy, but their half-back line is still very good. Brendan Butler, Conor Plunkett and Patrick Donnellan played very well against Waterford, although their full-back line was hardly tested at all. The same at midfield. Colin Lynch and Brian O'Connell won that battle easily, but Donal O'Grady and Mike O'Brien are a different proposition.

So there are still some question marks about the Clare team, simply because Waterford never fully tested them, other than John Mullane.

The Dublin-Wexford replay in Croke Park is an equally close call. Going into last weekend, I felt Dublin had a great chance of beating Wexford, and as it turned out they did have.

The match should have been over at half-time, if Dublin had taken all the scores they created. Ultimately, they just weren't clinical enough in the forward line, and they were overly reliant on David O'Callaghan.

The danger this week is that Wexford were almost embarrassed by their first half last week. I just feel it will be a much tougher job for Dublin to beat Wexford this time.

Wexford have the greater Croke Park experience as well, and even though it's a home game for Dublin, the Wexford support will be greater given they're out in the football as well. It's a pity for Dublin their footballers aren't the ones playing, because that would be a different story.

Still, Dublin are absolutely capable of beating Wexford. They have the players, Ronan Fallon, Tomás Brady, John McCaffrey, and, of course, O'Callaghan. They should have won last Saturday, so it's hard to know if they can turn it around, psychologically and start all over again.

On the other hand, I can't see Wexford playing as badly again.