At the Limerick Supporters’ Club function in Dublin last March, a member of our table remarked upon the change of life compared to the 1980s and the 1990s. “In those days,” he bemoaned, “You looked forward to a championship game for six weeks and then you spent another six weeks talking about it afterwards. Nowadays, it’s a day and it’s almost forgotten, there is no build up and there’s no post mortem.” Granted he was referring to Limerick hurlers who might have had one big match, and more often than not bit the dust. However, in the general context he is correct, perhaps people are busier, perhaps have too many big days out across a number of codes, or perhaps there are so many GAA games, that the public can’t cope.

Either way, Cork and Tipperary are upon us next weekend, and it doesn’t feel like a Cork and Tipperary weekend.

The clash of the Old Firm in hurling, which was once an annual pilgrimage, is merely a stepping stone now, and some would regard it as a nuisance of a game this early in the season, which is a disturbing mentality. We will get all the well worn clichés, about Provincial Championships being meaningless, about it being time for the open draw, about a Champions League style system etc. etc. However, all that sort of rubbish grates with this writer. There is an element there who want more matches, so there can be greater justification for the non playing financial element of the game. Hotels, Physios, PE Gurus, Statsmen, Pundits, etc. would all benefit from a greater number of games, and therefore that ‘push’ will always be there. They will gain from a ‘services rendered’ perspective, and they will gain from a ‘shop window’ for future suitors perspective. However, the public appetite isn’t there for the number of games we currently have and that’s proved by dwindling attendances, recession or no recession. In Ireland, we are a predominantly rural support base, and don’t have the same week-in week-out dedication that English cities have towards their local teams in the English premiership. The attendance in Thurles on Sunday could even test the lowest attendance for an Old Firm game as the recession bites its way into slush funds for such activities. Free entry for kids may create a deceptively higher attendance than ordinarily will be there.

The championship is about the public as much as about the players. Who wants a champions league in hurling, where Tipperary beat Cork in their first game, and know in June that subs will win their remaining games against Offaly and Wexford? Who wants an open draw where instead of facing Waterford in Thurles, Limerick will travel the long distance to Wexford, or to Dublin for their first match and have a long road home in the event of a defeat? Long trips are for later in the summer. What’s needed this year above all, are a Leinster and Munster Championship in hurling that restore value to those competitions. In 1996 we all watched Ciaran Carey lift the Munster Championship trophy after a memorable campaign and then absconded to the various hostelries to watch one of the greatest Leinster finals of recent years. We need that again in 2011. What we don’t need is a repeat of some of the tepid games last year.

The main difference between this year’s Tipperary vs Cork clash is that Tipperary are now the defending champions. That can mean two things, (a) Going through the back door isn’t enough for Tipperary they have to win both trophies this year, and (b) Sometimes, almost by default, All Ireland champions often tend to win early rounds the following year, operating at a lesser capacity than they did the previous year. They might operate in second gear, but it just seems to happen that little easier for them. Whether it’s greater confidence meaning that guys aren’t afraid of making mistakes, or whether it’s a case of being that little bit more economical with their chances, it happens sometimes. Could that mean a scenario where Tipperary win on Sunday without playing much better than they did in Pairc Ui Chaoimh last year? It’s very difficult to offer any sort of meaningful insightful analysis on AFR without the availability of either team which might not become available until Friday night.

On paper at least, it would appear as though Cork have slipped as a team, whereas Tipperary have improved significantly, even allowing for injuries. The perception is there, that Tipperary can afford to be without the players they are missing, but then again the perception for the last five years has been that the Kilkenny subs would beat any team. When it came to it, the absence of only two players, Brian Hogan, and Henry Shefflin proved crucial last September and Tipperary will miss Declan Fanning and most especially Brendan Maher. His off the ball workrate is phenomenal, and there is a cleverness about his reading and movement in off the ball situations, that a replacement with decent hurling ability mightn’t necessarily match.

Patrick ‘Bonnar’ Maher is also a doubt, and while he doesn’t endear himself to Tipperary purists, Liam Sheedy was adamant at a recent coaching conference in Limerick that he was vital to the All Ireland victory last season. But some Tipperary supporters would prefer to lose a game with hurlers, than to win one with rooters. Is the gospel according to Liam Sheedy, not to mention the presence of the McCarthy Cup, not enough? How many of this potential starting forward line have the greatest appetite for rooting and tearing? 10.Seamus Callinan, 11.Noel McGrath, 12.Pa Bourke, 13.Shane Bourke, 14.Eoin Kelly, 15.Lar Corbett. Based on the theory of champions winning in second gear, they might not need a rooter with that slick, sizzling and scoring sextet, but if Cork are in a mood for an ambush things could get complicated.

The managerial change is something different for them. In 2007, Pat O’Shea replaced Jack O’Connor as Kerry Football manager, and O’Connor at the time believed that a fresh voice enhanced their chances of retaining their All Ireland title. John Allen replaced Donal O’Grady in 2005 and duly delivered another title too. Can Declan Ryan do the same in Tipperary? It helps that he retained the title at minor level having replaced Sheedy. One key difference though is that both John Allen and Pat O’Shea were essentially people persons, adopting a more facilitative approach to players than their predecessors. Some Tipperary people are of the opinion that they have done things in reverse, with the personality of the departed Liam Sheedy, lending itself more to the role of a facilitator than that of the new manager Declan Ryan. In both previous examples the backroom team remained more or less the same, but in this case, the highly innovative Eamonn O’Shea has been replaced by Tommy Dunne who might not have the same nous a this early stage of his coaching career. The early dropping of Conor O’Brien met with a few question marks in West Tipperary, and is reported to have rattled a few key players at the time, who would have been close to O’Brien. He was the seventh back in the squad, and allegedly his greatest crime was being a bit of a gas man at training. Some believe that gas men aren’t necessarily a priority in the new environment. That perception sounds overly simplistic, at that level the call needs to be made on form and form alone. But only those in the inner circle can comment on that.

Cork on the other hand have come in quietly. Apart from the occasional Sean Óg Ó‘Hailpín ripple, there isn’t a murmur from them. They peaked early last year, and truth told, probably needed hit 100% to if they were to win against Tipperary. Munster didn’t happen for them afterwards, primarily due to (a) a lack of a motivating semi final against Limerick that allowed them to slip down a few gears, (b) a resultant concentration lapse in the drawn final that might never have occurred after a testing Semi Final, and (c) The injuries in the replay. Aisaki is no longe