What a sport! - Can we agree on two things about hurling before we start? One: the system used to produce the two hurling finalists is perhaps the most puzzling mixture of regional, pool and national qualifiers known to any field sport in the world and Two: it's an incredible game despite the fact there are very few rules actually enforced! In fact the attitude of both referees and players to the playing rules of hurling are similar to that of the teenager and speeding in an automobile - more or less optional. Despite my protestations in the previous paragraph this hurling year has been spectacular. The hurling weekends have been shared with some major football ones so I did not get to see the small ball spectaculars live, but the highlights packages were riveting. Where does one begin and has this vintage year much to do with the great hurling personalities in charge of the competing teams? I believe it has. Everywhere you look the managers are larger than life - Bennis, Cody, Loughnane, Meyler, the two McCarthys and sadly we must talk about some of the others in the past tense - Babs Keating, John McIntyre and Tony Considine. It seems to me the hurling world is/was populated with such marvelous people it just had to produce an epic year. We will get to the final in a few hundred words time but it is important to reflect on the year in its totality. As usual, the Leinster championship was a disaster and the Munster version, one of the greatest in living memory. Very little hurling goes on elsewhere and the standard arrival of Galway/Derry/Antrim came to pass. The pool series is sold as a method by which the weaker teams can emerge but similar to its football equivalent, one can argue it is a system designed to get the marquee teams through to the Annual Ball that is the hurling quarter-finals. And so the teams that lined up for the Last Eight contained not a single surprise - even I could have predicted the list when the draws were made. That is not healthy and the decision to reward provincial winners with a semi-final berth in 2008 is a step in the right direction even if Kilkenny are in a monopoly position. Waterford, despite their exit in yet another semi-final will be the story team of 2007 if of course Limerick fails to beat Kilkenny. If Richie Bennis and his gang can cause a great upset, then they will assume that position. I mentioned before in this column the natural alliance Mayo footballers and Waterford hurlers make - easy bedfellows in the tough luck storied world of Gaelic games. I was in Croke Park the day both Waterford hurlers and Monaghan footballers fell and the atmosphere down around the dressing rooms must have resembled a funeral home. One had to feel great sympathy for the hurlers - they did everything asked of them this year but get to the final and that failure will be regretted-this team might never get a better chance. Monaghan footballers will surely come again so their sense of loss was not as acute. But if Waterford ended up on their knees what about the rise and rise of Limerick? The arrival of Bennis is a Godsend to both Limerick and hurling in general. There are times when he seems to be out of control and times when he reminds me of the old days when things were very simple and you just went out and had a cut. I understand he banned the Jaffa cakes, got rid of the team bus and went back to the four men in a car job, no more DVDs, feck this medical back-up as big as an A and E ward and will every man pick up a man and hurl up a storm. He has certainly put the love back into Limerick hurling. And while Babs Keating, John Meyler, Ger Loughnane, John McIntyre and Tony Considine might have crashed and sometimes burned, one man kept plodding along nice and quietly. Brian Cody is my idea of what the perfect GAA manager might be. Quiet yet adamant about his beliefs on how the game should be managed and played, he is friendly with his players yet removed enough to make the hard calls, caring yet ruthless. I realize he had a deep pool of talent but it is the manner in which the squad remains motivated to win more that his true genius is revealed. Lots of counties win All Irelands and the odd one might add a second title but only Kerry footballers of the 70s and 80s and their Dublin rivals of the 70s kept coming back year after year for more. It takes a lot of management skill to keep the lads focused and hungry enough to stay at the top and Cody seems to do this at his ease - I am sure it's not that simple but he makes it appear so. And a quick word for Ger Loughnane and Galway. He might well have set the template for teams hoping to beat Kilkenny - intensity and in-your-face-hurling seems the basic pre-requisite if you are going to compete with them. After that, you need to be able to hurl a bit too. With Cork and perhaps Kilkenny past their zenith, a window might appear next season. My Galway friend (I have only one left) wants Ger to pick a settled team with an imposing spine, stop the mind games and zip the lips and he is sure Galway will land Liam McCarthy in 2008! To the final then. Kilkenny by a minimum of seven? Stall the horses……..Limerick as underdogs are a dangerous animal. Look at their recent All Ireland history - underdogs in 1973 and won; favorites in the others and lost. Limerick know how to hook and block and their naturally physicality will raise the tempo and intensity. The question will be can they sustain it against a Kilkenny team that can threaten from any position and score in most of them from midfield up. Bennis has done a fantastic job with Limerick and the outstanding players from the three-in-a-row under 21 titles will not be allowed to wither on the vine. The amount of hugging and bonhomie Richie is responsible for this year has unnerved a few opposing managers but I expect he will continue to do things off the cuff. No matter the result he can look back on the championship and say: 'I did it my way'. But there is always a but. Toss it and turn it any way you want, the conclusion remains the same - it has to be Kilkenny. And because of their all round excellence you have to think they might win this with a bit to spare. Tweet

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