Brenner at centre forward

The first major team selection of the championship sees Waterford hurlers field a largely predictable 15 although the positioning will cause some comment. After a National League campaign which ended disappointingly, Gerald McCarthy's team have reverted to tried and tested personnel with only one championship newcomer, James Murray.

Despite scepticism elsewhere, the view from Waterford is that the selected team, which surprisingly has Johnny Brenner at centre forward and Ken McGrath at full forward, is "for real".

Since the league semi-final exit against Galway, a number of the changes had become inevitable. Despite a number of impressive performances during the campaign, James O'Connor was exposed by the pace of Galway's Ollie Canning. Sean Cullinane doesn't bring any greater pace to the party but his greater craft and more proven track record at full back made him a likely return.

Similarly, Stephen Frampton, who missed the Galway match because he was on the AIB tour of Australia, was a certainty to resume at wing back to bring greater solidity to the half-back line.

There appears to have been some soul-searching about the centre back position. For all his hurling ability, Fergal Hartley's lack of pace is a worry for Waterford, but after the attempts to recycle him as a forward came to nothing, there was little option but install him at centre back. Part of the reasoning is Tipperary's likely deployment of Declan Ryan, who will play centre forward or nowhere. Ryan won't pose that fleet-footed a threat and in the absence of obvious options on the 40 for Tipperary, Waterford have decided that it's worth sticking with Hartley.

The selection from centrefield up will start the most speculation. The restoration of the Peter Queally-Tony Browne midfield partnership was likely as soon as it was decided that Queally wouldn't be used at centre back. It is also a commentary on the relative failure of Browne and Brenner's combination against Galway. The move boasts the additional rationale that Browne, whose form has been unimpressive to date, is more comfortable operating in the middle with a physical, industrious hurler like Queally who allows him a more expressive game.

Browne's form has been perhaps the biggest worry for the county. Troubled by injury, he didn't play the full league campaign and was substituted in the defeat by Galway. Two years ago, he came into the championship with a good league behind him and went on to become Hurler of the Year. This time the lead-in is the cause of greater anxiety.

Murray may be the only debutant but Brenner is as good as one. His involvement with McCarthy's big adventure has been tenuous. After the massively disappointing 1997 championship the player, a star of the under-21 All-Ireland success in 1992, dropped out of sight.

He gave a number of positive displays during the good part of Waterford's run in this year's league but has now been moved from centrefield to centre forward.

There is some doubt over the credibility of playing him there but he has been playing in the position with his club De La Salle and is seen as good an option as any for the position now that the decision has been made to move McGrath in to full forward.

Although Anthony Kirwan was always top of the list to be dropped - Dan Shanahan and O'Connor were both recently mooted as full forwards - the decision is curious given McGrath's excellent form in the league at centre forward. It reflects a view that Tipperary's much-praised full back Philip Maher is more vulnerable than his league performances suggest. Galway's Ollie Fahy stretched Maher in the league final but only when the match was running decisively away from Tipperary.

McGrath and Paul Flynn are seen as the right combination on the inside with fingers crossed that Flynn can recover some of the brio which reaped him 0-10 against Tipperary two years ago. Micheal White is listed at right corner forward but thought likely to try to bring Michael Ryan out the field, leaving his two colleagues inside.

Another feature of the league semi-final was the poor free-taking of both McGrath and Flynn. Eventually Dave Bennett was asked to take up the duties and he did better than either of the others. A prolific dead-ball striker in the Fitzgibbon Cup, Bennett is viewed as not being fully-tested in this capacity at championship level and so Flynn will probably continue as free-taker.