Andy Maloney has made a shock return to the Waterford team for Sunday's All-Ireland semi-final against Clare at Croke Park. Seán Moran reports.

The former Tipperary player started in the Munster semi-final success against Cork but was replaced early in the match.

Clare manager Cyril Lyons has kept the same 15 that defeated hot-favourites Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-finals just over a fortnight ago.

Moloney is named at centre forward for this weekend to play on Seán McMahon.

Only three players are named in the position in which they lined out for the historic Munster final victory over Tipperary. Nonetheless, such a formation is unlikely to start, given Waterford manager Justin McCarthy's penchant for naming dummy teams. Before both of the county's matches to date there have been significant switches to the announced line-up.

After sustaining an eye injury two years ago, Moloney drifted off the county scene in Tipperary and wasn't recalled for the successful All-Ireland campaign of last year. He relocated to Waterford and transferred to county champions Ballygunner and then the county team itself.

A strong, industrious player, his recall is, according to one source in the county, "certainly a surprise". James Murray is the player to lose out, and while his position on the team was believed by some to be under pressure, the expected beneficiary was Dave Bennett rather than Moloney.

No such perplexity in Clare, where there is only one positional change with Alan Markham switching to full forward and Tony Carmody moving to the left corner of the attack. It's an experienced line-up with only four newcomers to this level of intercounty championship. And one of them is David Hoey, who contested two All-Ireland finals with his club, St Joseph's Doora-Barefield.

The others are wing back Gerry Quinn, centre forward Tony Griffin and Carmody.

The mood in both counties appears to be upbeat with ticket sales buoyant. Clare PRO Des Crowe was feisty. "They're going strong, going well. I think we'll see nearer 60,000 than 50,000 there on Sunday. It won't be as big as Monday (the football quarter-final crowd of over 77,000) but it will be well in excess of 50,000."

This will be the first time the counties have met in the championship for four years, when they clashed twice in a controversial Munster final and replay. The replay started explosively with players clashing at the throw-in. During the match Brian Lohan - who captains Clare this weekend - and Micheál White - who is on the Waterford bench - were sent off.

In the aftermath, Clare's Colin Lynch was suspended following a Munster Council investigation. The disciplinary action caused great controversy and an application by Lynch for a High Court injunction against the suspension was turned down.

CLARE

1 D Fitzgerald

2 B Quinn

3 B Lohan (capt)

4 F Lohan

5 D Hoey

6 S McMahon

7 G Quinn

8 J Reddan

9 C Lynch

10 J O'Connor

11 T Griffin

12 N Gilligan

13 D Forde

14 A Markham

15 T Carmody

SUBSTITUTES

G O'Connell, C Harrison, K Kennedy, C Plunkett, D McMahon, O Baker, C Earlie, G Considine, A Quinn, P Vaughan, J Considine, R O'Looney, B Nugent, D Kennedy.

WATERFORD

1 S Brenner

2 B Greene

3 T Feeney

4 B Flannery

5 T Browne

6 F Hartley (capt)

7 E Murphy

8 P Queally

9 E Kelly

10 E McGrath

11 A Maloney

12 K McGrath

13 J Mullane

14 S Prendergast

15 P Flynn

SUBSTITUTES

N Kelly, J O'Connor, J Murray, D Prendergast, D Bennett, B Phelan, C Watt, M White, P Fitzgerald, M Walsh, D Shanahan.