League final promises greater things

Really looking forward to tomorrow's league decider in the hurling between Galway and Tipp.
Part of the attraction is that the Big two will be sitting this one out while two of the sides who have a realistic chance of challenging the established order get the chance to show their credentials at Gaelic Park.
Tipp have a new manager Liam Sheedy while Galway's Ger Loughnane is already a legend in the game and not always for the right reasons.
Loughnane is particularly disliked in Tipp since the era when his Clare side mercilessly put Tipp to the sword during the hurling revolution of the '90s, beating them in a Munster final and then the All-Ireland final of 1997, when Sheedy played on the losing team.
Tipp people regarded the then Clare boss and his side as arrogant bullies.
Yes Clare did play with some swagger at that time and they were among the most pumped-up sides in the country, but that was natural enough after years of enduring hidings at the hands of Cork and Tipp as they didn't get to play Kilkenny in the championship then as they couldn't get out of Munster.
However, despite the local rivalry I was shocked in a pub in Tipp in 1998 to hear the locals cheer Offaly on against Clare in the famous third encounter between the sides in the 1998 All-Ireland semi final.
Being an Ulsterman it has always been our tradition, apart from the Tyrone and Derry people I believe where there is no love lost for each other, to cheer on the Ulster champions once they left the province to take on the southern hordes.
So when I asked people there what was the craic, the one answer again and again for the support for Offaly was that "b******d Loughnane".
So there is no doubt that the Tipp people will want their team to put one over the upstart from Feakle who dared to challenge the 'natural order' of hurling.
And in fairness Tipp have improved this season, they are a hard working side for a start and maybe at last some of the underage talent they have produced in recent seasons is beginning to bloom. Shane McGrath has been outstanding in midfield and while Eoin Kelly still continues to produce the goods up front he has had a little more support with a better spread of the scores.
Galway on the other hand have come on in leaps and bounds. For around ten years I wondered were they incapable of producing big physically strong forwards but they look a lot more imposing and of course the country awaits to see can Joe Canning build on his great start to inter-county hurling.
In Richie Murray and Kevin Hynes they have two hard working midfielders.
The other thing I see going Galway's way is the fact that it is Tipp they are facing and the Tribesmen don't have the same fear or inferiority complex about the Premier men as they have had traditionally with Kilkenny and Cork.
I think it will be a great joust, I think the title might just go west and I hope that this is more than another false dawn where Galway and Tipp have promised much but flattered to deceive.