Experienced Kilkenny can edge it, but Cody must make most of strength in depth

If you’re looking for indicators from the last two replays, you’re heading up the wrong path.

If last year proved one thing, then 2012 demonstrated another. Twelve months ago, it was said Clare couldn’t perform as well again the second time around. They knocked that suggestion right out of the park. However, the same was mentioned about Galway the year previous and in the replay they didn’t quite live up to the display in the drawn game.

Best to consider this tie on its own merits, then. Tipperary will source a lot of encouragement from the way they kept their composure in the closing stages. Had they lost, it would have ranked alongside 2009 as one of those glorious failures when they played better than the victors. Kilkenny will be fuelled by a sense of injustice as much as a recognition that they were outhurled for major swathes of the first game. And yet Kilkenny found themselves three points up with four minutes left because of the character they showed against Limerick, namely in Richie Hogan and Paul Murphy.