Enda McEvoy: 'It should be Clare. Just one slight problem. The identity of the other crowd'

The opening All-Ireland semi-final will go down to the wire - unlike the Sunday equivalent. About Galway there are far too many ifs and buts, and even if Henry Shefflin conjures an obdurate, seasonal-best performance Limerick are not the kind of team to be carrying ifs and buts into battle with.

BATTLE AWAITS: Clare's John Conlon and Richie Leahy of Kilkenny Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Lorraine O’Sullivan

It should be Clare tonight. What could possibly go wrong for them? Let us count their myriad virtues.

They’re not notably young but they’re notably vibrant. In a championship of the semi-comatose and the barely competent they’ve been fun and fresh and purposeful, a blast of air in a retirement home of patients shuffling around just waiting to be put out of their misery. They’ve become to the second half of the season what Waterford were to the first half, potential claimants to Limerick’s green and iron throne.