Anthony Daly: Sometimes you long for the old Cork-Waterford ping-pong fests

Some of these guys may take their emotional energy from the crowd so you’d wonder now will that have an effect on the big guns here like Patrick Horgan and Austin Gleeson?

Cork's Shane Kingston strikes as Shane McNulty of Waterford attempts to flick the sliotar away. Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Hurling has been so good to us now for so long that it can often be easy to forget how good we’ve really had it. Clare and Laois may have shipped hidings last weekend but the Liam MacCarthy Cup has still never been more open; Nostradamus would do well to select the winners from the four games today and tomorrow.

Of course, there was a time when it wasn’t so good, or when the landscape didn’t look so healthy, especially when Kilkenny were burning and razing as they went on their epic crusade. And yet still, in the midst of all that dominance, we were still treated to possibly the greatest and most satisfying hurling rivalry that many of us can remember.