In the aftermath of an awful mauling by Tipperary in the league semi-final at Ennis, Galway dismissed the sorry spectacle and asked us to judge them on the championship. The high-risk nature of that approach is now clear. Tomorrow afternoon in the second All-Ireland hurling semi-final, Galway face their first serious match since that evening over three months ago. They are up against defending champions Kilkenny, a team already being measured up for a place in the history of great hurling teams.

The quarter-final against Derry was a non-event. Maybe the attack was sharp but it wasn't being honed to a point by a grindstone defence; tomorrow will be the judge of how sharp it is. It has been dawning on people that Kilkenny are more than a full-forward line. Their defence has been monolithic in the past year.

Eamonn Kennedy is particularly improved, more confident and physically intimidating. With Philip Larkin and Peter Barry on either side, the line has been a substantial platform.

So the first question is: can Galway pressurise this line? Mark Kerins is wholehearted and physical, but can he get Kennedy on the back foot? If not, will Joe Rabbitte take up the role in which he delivered so decisively in last year's quarter-final against Tipperary? Kevin Broderick is in good form, an observation franked more convincingly in the county championship than in the trot against Derry. He will compete without the ball, but as a player who operates off the breaks, he has a vital interest in how things go on the 40.

The deployment of the Galway forwards has triggered more rumours than an average Elizabethan tavern would hear in a year. Even the vacancy at left full forward hasn't produced definitive theories.

Darren Shaughnessy, Fergal Healy, Ollie Fahy and Damien Hayes have all figured. There has been a persistent theory that Rabbitte and Eugene Cloonan will start as a two-man full forward line - which wouldn't leave great heft out the field. If the Kilkenny half backs aren't discommoded, Galway's inside forwards won't come into it whatever way they're lined out.

Centrefield will probably be crowded. Although Galway did well here against Derry, Brian McEvoy and Andy Comerford are a different bill of fare. McEvoy's switch in place of Canice Brennan gives the unit more pace and mobility and this will pose its own threat - as Comerford showed in last year's match between the counties when slipping through for a goal in the absence of a physically- imposing Galway pairing.

Even crowding the sector is problematic, because Kilkenny have gone for force rather than subtlety in the half forwards. This partly reflects Denis Byrne's poor form, but there is also an intention to restrict Galway's half backs. John Power will bump and grind away probably to the discomfort of Liam Hodgins, who, in the words of one Galway observer, "prefers to mark space rather than the man" and Power's apprentice, John Hoyne, won't be too bothered by any crowding.

Kilkenny may be more than a full-forward line but it's that line that wins them matches comfortably. With injury dogging him earlier this year DJ Carey was subdued by his own standards in Leinster. Word now is that he is leaner and meaner and ready to play his role in the assassins' collective up front.

Of concern to Galway has to be the less-than-convincing display of their full backs in the quarter-final. Geoffrey McGonigle caught a disproportionate amount of ball off Michael Healy. Maybe the full back will be more comfortable with low ball. But against Carey? Hardly. Ollie Canning will be encouraged by his fine display on Charlie Carter last year but Carter has been irresistible so far this season.

Gregory Kennedy won't be penalised for pace against Henry Shefflin but has he the physical stature to cope with the high ball? And can he play everything from the front, given the exorbitant price of being caught out? The only way to hold Kilkenny's full forwards is either to mark them out of it - which entails winning about 70 per cent of contested ball - or to cut the supply. Which brings us back to Eamonn Kennedy and company.

Galway do have the element of surprise this year as no-one is really sure of their capabilities. But Kilkenny wouldn't be the only ones to be surprised.