Enda McEvoy: 'Inasmuch as any league final has to be won, Waterford need to be winning this one'

Encouraging as it would be for Waterford to win, it would be even more encouraging for them to do so minus the services of Austin Gleeson.

Cork's Darragh Fitzgibbon under pressure from Calum Lyons of Waterford during last year's Allianz Hurling League Division 1 Group A game between the counties at Páirc Ui Chaoimh 

The great unscripted drama, as John Allen once put it so poetically and so accurately. The referee throws in the ball, away they go and in a sport as random as hurling – a game as random as hurling used to be, at any rate - anything can happen and frequently does.

Except at Páirc Uí Chaoimh seven nights ago, when Cork won in precisely the manner that, if they were to win, the world and its mother knew they would.