Hurling has had a rough old year of it. Too many hammerings, not enough competitive teams, a sense of inevitability about the season as it marches on to a Cork-Limerick All-Ireland final.The seeming certainty that they would meet in the All-Ireland final has minimised the importance of the four previous games they’ve played against each other in 2026. Given the paucity of opposition to the Big Two, every game between them, whether it was the regulation league game, the league final, the Munster round-robin game, or the Munster final, has had an asterisk beside it.There were almost 19,000 in the Gaelic Grounds for the regulation league game at the start of March. There were 41,000 in the same ground for the league final. A crowd of 43,500 was in Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the round-robin game and the same number again for the Munster final. That level of interest is obviously stratospheric, but it is also true that everything that has happened up to now feels like prologue, including even the Munster final.The Limerick celebrations on the pitch in Cork that afternoon at the end of the provincial final were riotous, and spoke to the intensity of the battle that preceded it. But it’s not the end of the season, and it’s a simple fact that it will all ring hollow if the last game of the pentalogy doesn’t go their way.Unless of course, there is no fifth and final chapter to be written.I have been thinking for the last week or so of 2005, my first year earning a wage in Dublin. I lived just off Drumcondra Road, and went to every game I could in Croke Park. This included both All-Ireland hurling semi-finals, where a previously moribund Galway were facing Kilkenny, and Clare went up against Cork.Cork and Kilkenny had played in the previous two All-Ireland finals. The expectation was universal that they would be back there again, and Galway and Clare did not seem particularly well-placed to give them much opposition.In the end, Anthony Daly’s Clare contrived to lose by a point after being six up and flying late in the second half, and Galway did in fact beat Kilkenny, 5-18 to 4-18, in one of the most ridiculous games of hurling I ever had the pleasure of attending. We were two points away from a Galway-Clare All-Ireland final. The chances of that happening in 2026 are slim, but they are also not non-existent.Peter Barry of Kilkenny and David Forde of Galway in the 2005 All-Ireland semi-final. Photograph: Lorraine O'Sullivan/©INPHO There is another question: what does hurling want from this weekend? Two shock wins would be an incredible shot in the arm for the game. But what about one shock? Would you trade in the possibility of a fiercely contested Cork-Limerick final for the short-term gain of a shock win in the preceding round?Maybe the only thing that can save this season is the All-Ireland final we’ve all predicted. Or maybe, just maybe, the gap between the best and “the rest”, as represented by Galway and Clare, isn’t as wide as our eyes would tell us this season.Limerick’s Diarmaid Byrnes celebrates scoring against Clare in the Munster Championship on May 3rd, 2026. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/©INPHO Clare were All-Ireland champions less than two years ago, and in one respect it’s disrespectful to even talk of them in these terms. This team has always enjoyed Croke Park, and it has until this year always enjoyed putting it up to Limerick. In truth, it’s hard to get past the 15-point hammering in Cusack Park earlier this year, and the injuries suffered in the facile quarter-final win over Dublin ensure it’s an even more difficult case to make. But whatever team Clare put out will surely be in a better position to beat Limerick than the 14 men of Dublin last year. And they have champion players, some of the finest we’ve seen this century.Galway have already achieved their primary aim for this year, which was a Leinster final victory. Results for Leinster teams subsequent to that have perhaps added context to what that means in reality, but silverware was important for this young team. [ Darragh Ó Sé: Louth belong at this level – they’re not the underdogs they’ve been for most of our livesOpens in new window ]There is also Galway’s recent record against Cork. They haven’t lost to the Rebels in the championship since 2008. That’s a five-game winning streak, including their most recent win in the 2022 All-Ireland quarter-final, with quite a few survivors from that day on both sides. Twelve of that Cork team saw action in this year’s provincial finals, and for all of this Galway team’s youth, 10 of their team did. Neither of those numbers are insignificant.Galway have writhed under the Limerick lash at this stage of the championship in recent years, but no such scar tissue exists with Cork. The league game between the sides in Pearse Stadium was perhaps the first indication that Galway were for real this year, even in defeat. It probably won’t be enough, and this Cork team have shown a propensity to drive home with maximum force any hint of dominance, but if both Burkes are fit, then Galway can give this a rattle.