Galway have tiptoed through the league without a whole lot of fuss. There wasn’t a lot of note to report beyond the fact that Galway are Galway.

A team capable of losing by more against Waterford than they did against Kilkenny and still going out the next day and putting Tipperary away.

You’d go potty trying to sum them up. As ever, they are in the process of nailing certain key positions down.

Iarla Tannian is the latest to put his hand up for centre-back, although he has been struggling this week with a hamstring injury.

Certainly his size and thirst for the ball gives him a chance to be a force in that spot, although it remains to be seen how he copes with a forward who wants to take him on a tour of a big pitch.

Joe Canning returns as captain to a forward line that coped reasonably well in his absence due to club duties. Conor Cooney has thrived, Johnny Glynn has brought more than just nuisance value on the edge of the square.

Kilkenny haven’t been exactly watertight at the back so you sense that Galway will need to exploit that. For at the other end, there has been virtually no holding Brian Cody’s side. Their lowest score in a league game was 18 points, their second lowest was 2-16.

For all of Cody’s experimentation through the league, probably their best ‘discovery’ has been Walter Walsh.

Slimmed down and revved up, he is averaging three points a game from wing-forward and has become a dependable forward who wins his own ball and engineers his own scores.

Cody will always find a place for that. While you can't rule out a from-the-sky Galway display, Kilkenny look a safer bet.
Verdict: Kilkenny by four