New order reaches a defining point

NEW world order.

How did we get here? The most hyped hurling game of recent times takes place in the Gaelic Grounds tomorrow between Clare and Limerick and it's not even a Munster final.

Tipperary, assuming they survive in Tralee tonight, lie ahead. They will go into a provincial final as distinct underdogs. This summer's will be the fifth Munster final contested by either Clare or Limerick, the first in three years to entertain Tipperary. Cork absent from the big day since 1992 lie fallen on the roadway far behind us.

The story of the revolution in Munster is one where the principle protagonists have continually ambushed each other while plotting to plunder the houses of the aristocracy. The progress charts of Clare and Limerick have crossed somewhere along the way.

Limerick were pressing for an All Ireland and Clare were pushing towards respectability in Munster when from nowhere Clare came out of the traps and went all the way last summer. Tomorrow Clare start as mild favourites, their standing a residual of last summer's sweetness. In reality the paths are running parallel.

This is the fourth successive summer in which the teams have met in the championship. When benchmarks are applied to either team's progress the obvious is never overlooked. Limerick's All Ireland defeat in 1994. Clare's humiliation at the hands of Tipperary in 1993. Yet it is on the days when they have bumped up against each other that Limerick and Clare have best been able to measure where they are going.

For Clare and Limerick this is what Ger Loughnane describes as the "rubber match" one of those games which marks a defining point in the relationship between two teams. One of the landmarks of the summer.