Since we were last with you....

Things are looking up for Waterford hurling supremo Justin McCarthy after their NHL triumph.

LIAM HORAN and MICHAEL MOYNIHAN read the tea leaves — and the league form book — in an effort to unearth the teams set to bask in championships glory come September

CONVERSATION to which I bore witness in a hurling pub in a hurling city (okay, Cork), circa 2001.

Football Man: “Noel, what do you think about the International Rules?”

Hurling Man (aka Noel): “I don’t think about the International Rules.”

Hasn’t this year’s football championship got that kind of feel about it, too? You sit yourself down, you gather your thoughts and you realise, ‘actually, I don’t have that many thoughts about this year’s championship.’

Or, forgive us Father, the only thoughts I have about this year’s championship are bad thoughts.

I try so hard to shut down my galloping imagination, but I can’t. Them there bad thoughts, they keep coming back. They’re driving me mad, Father.

Like Ireland in our schooldays, there is a sense of widespread recession.

The economy of heavyweights Kerry may not be receding, but the rate of growth looks to have slowed down since they slam-dunked Mayo last September. Other Tigers like Armagh and Tyrone have a worrying build-up of negative equity.

Since last this production rolled into town, Armagh have lost more league games than is excusable, and they’ve also gone and lost Francie to injury — one or two more interest rate hikes and they’ll be the subject of a sombre Monday night special on RTÉ featuring all sorts of grim warnings about what lies ahead.

Tyrone’s current lacking-in-lustre state is a little more perplexing. At least Armagh have the excuse of advancing years. Tyrone have a long way to go before they are helped across streets.

Yet something in the mix is not right, and while it would be foolish to rule them out of this year’s campaign, they have to tidy up their act considerably if they are to add a third All-Ireland title in this their most fertile decade.

But where were we? Oh yes, last September and last year. It would be wrong to describe it as a featureless All-Ireland championship, because it wasn’t: the magic of Star elevated the whole thing to a level we could not have anticipated as we ploughed our way through the foothills last May, June and July.

And then there was the Sun, Moon and Stars meeting of Dublin and Mayo, a good old-fashioned, in-our-father’s-time epic. We will still be talking about Donaghy and that Mayo match in 50 years, if we’re spared that long, but, as we face into 2007, only the aura of Star lingers.

He casts a long shadow over the entire football world right now.

First off, does he have the hunger and that niggardly sense of wanting to prove himself all over again this season? Or has he supped enough from victory’s jug? You would be inclined to believe that while one glittering All-Ireland campaign might sate a Mayo, Galway, Dublin or Meath attacker, it will not be a sufficient feast for a Kerryman.

Only Star can supply the answer.

Since we left off in September, he has gone and got himself sent off a couple of times, and we fancy that in darkened rooms in places like Omagh and Crossmaglen, wicked plans are being hatched about how to wreck Star’s buzz so that he lashes out and gets himself put in the corner (and we don’t mean jerseys 13 and 15) for, say, the last half hour of the game.

Reminds us of the time (perhaps apocryphal, like the rest) Kerry were allegedly plotting to rattle Paddy Cullen’s cage in an All-Ireland final.

Cullen, young reader, was Dublin ‘keeper in the 1970s and early 1980s, when Kerry ruled the land. Sported a neat haircut, did Paddy. Dapper bloke all-round. Well-liked, too, particularly by the Kerry lads. But war is war, and war is not playschool, so nothing personal, Paddy, but the Kerry lads want to get a shot at you.

Various schemes are conjured up in a dimly-lit Killarney dressingroom. A long, lingering sideline kick to drop into the square; the Bomber to delay his run just long enough to allow Cullen gather the ball; and then, bang! That was one suggestion from the suite of options. That kind of thing.

Mick O’Dwyer decides the opinion of Páidí Ó Sé should be solicited on this matter.

O’Dwyer: “How would you propose getting in to have a shot at Cullen, Páidí?”

Páidí (with full-fat expletives deleted here): “Tisn’t the getting in at all I’d worry about, Micko, but the getting out after.”

The ‘getting out after’ won’t worry the physicalacticos up north. But Star worries everyone right now. Some counties have conscripted every young man over 6’ 3” tall and brought them off to training camps to see if they can find an anti-Star.

If Star brings his game with him, he could be the difference again. Donegal have elbowed their way up to the Trough of Spartan Living in recent months and could have something to say about the destiny of this title. But Mayo and Dublin have — at best — stagnated and neither will go all the way.

Meath are sniffing around again, but they’re coming from a bad place. Galway could upset a dream or two, but don’t have the stuff to live their own. We left Croke Park last September thinking Kerry have enough aces for a two-in-a-row and we are not inclined to change our mind.

Phew. That feels better now. Might just be able to conquer those bad thoughts, after all.

MEANWHILE, God’s Chosen People — the hurling fraternity — have the self-satisfied look of good and faithful servants.

Little wonder: there’s no shortage of messiahs this season when it comes to the small ball.

In Galway, Ger Loughnane comes not with peace, or a sword, but brutal pre-Christmas training around Ballybrit racecourse. Down south Gerald McCarthy is whipping up revival-tent fervour for that old-time religion of the long direct ball.

In Clare, Tony Considine is probably feeling like a prophet unloved in his own land after a spring of biblical castings-out; John Meyler was doing a reasonable Moses act in Wexford until the plague of locusts descended in the league semi-final; and behind them all lurks Brian Cody who may as well be speaking with lightning from the inside of a cloud like Zeus. (Relax: the mixture of Christian and Greek theologies was deliberate).

For all that, everyone is now looking to the east for salvation — Waterford, not Bethlehem. The league final was a genuine occasion rather than a run-out for 30 lads with their eye on the summer, and all the better for it. Pitch invasions often look a little out of place in April, but not on that memorable Sunday in Thurles.

Is it the terminus or a way station, though? Waterford are making all the right noises, but September is a long way off and complications have a way of just ... arriving. At the time of writing, for instance, news came through of Ken McGrath’s broken thumb, sustained in a club championship game.

You’ve as much chance of holding McGrath back from going all-out for Mt Sion as you have of holding the tide off the beach in Tramore, but it still presages an anxious wait for Justin McCarthy and company. We’re inclined to think we’ll see Ken play in the championship. Warriors live for the battle, after all.

Kilkenny remain the benchmark, but we offer one caveat: there seems an uncharacteristic uncertainty in the Marble City about the exact lay-out of the first 15: Hickey a corner-back? Cha in the full-forward line? That can’t last. And where’s James Ryall? More than one spectator frowned when the big wing-back didn’t materialise in Thurles for a game that seemed tailor-made for him.

Expect more tactics this year, rather than less. We have our eye on one or two youngsters, but we’re not about to burden them with any undue expectation, though of course we reserve the right to dish out I-told-you-so’s at a later date. Right now the bookies like Kilkenny, and we learned too many harsh lessons on Cheltenham week to take on any turf accountant.

Particularly with golden-wristed Henry. A cautious nod, then, but nothing more than that.

The certainty we leave to the football fraternity.

Amen.