Comment: Tom Humphries sees many possibilities but feels that some things are beyond the bounds of possibilities

As an appetiser for the hurling summer the recently digested National League final could scarcely have been bettered. The two best sides in the country in a Punch and Judy show splattered with enough goals to make both a great advertisement of the game and a conundrum out of the analysis.

Is the real Noel Hickey the guy who conceded 1-6 to Ger Redser O'Grady a few weeks previously or the guy who erased him in Croke Park? What will Kilkenny do with their wing forwards? In Tipp what will they do for a full forward now? Will Brian Horgan withstand the challenge of the returning Eamonn Corcoran? Two exhausted teams will be wondering how it could have come to this, each conceding five goals on a big day.

That's the beauty of it. There are favourites and good bets but no certainties, no sure-fire things. We made that mistake once already this decade when Kilkenny were hailed as perhaps the greatest side ever only to be bumped out of Croke Park by a young Galway side. Hurling is open. There is good health everywhere.

In Tipperary the transfer from the inspirational leadership of Nicky English appears to have been seamless. Michael Doyle has taken over so quietly as to be almost stealthful. Kilkenny are their own selves, bursting with talent. Brian Cody's main worry is the old coach's problem: hold the pigeon too tight and it dies, too loose and it flies away. Cody's genius is accommodating so many geniuses.

In Limerick it's coming close to harvest time. David Keane, who did the sowing at under-21 level, has been asked to bring in the crop. Right down to the scary schoolboy talents of Patrick Kirby and Andrew O'Shaughnessy there can be no doubt that Keane won't want for youthful vigour. Will his side find enough adult sense of purpose though?

Cork are inscrutable right now. They could go the distance or be knocked to the canvas at the opening bell. Either way not too many eyebrows will be raised. Waterford's listless league has seen them marginalised but they have the same players whom Justin McCarthy coaxed to a Munster title last year. Have they got it within themselves again?

Galway, Offaly and Wexford are coming again. Possibly in that order although Wexford's recent plundering of a point in Nowlan Park and their under-21 graduates might change that.

The game still wants something though. We miss the huge personality that a Loughnane or a Griffin brought. We want more swashing of the buckle, more derring-do. Too many counties hide their players away as if senior hurling were a branch of the Secret Service. Let them go out and be the giants the posters talk about, let them be larger than life, allow them fill the heads of young kids. Encourage them to shoulder-charge Beckham out of the picture.

Because hurling's reticence goes to something more fundamental. There is a selfishness among the upper classes, a contentment with the status quo. The odd missionary, a Dinny Cahill or a Michael O'Grady, goes forth to the counties of hurling's primitivism and tries to teach the natives but collectively hurling doesn't do enough for its toiling classes.

We need a Dublin breakthrough for the very reason that a Dublin breakthrough would be annoying to the brahmins. A Dublin breakthrough would be noisy and brash and filled with hype and endless media attention. It would be like having three Loughnanes on the go at one time.

Dublin would be nice but Laois, Kerry, Meath or an Ulster county or any other earnest trier would be almost as good because hurling summers could do with less ritual and more novelty. The game would breathe easier if it were admired less and played more.

The lore, the drills, the secrets, the traditions, the whole masonic darkness of the game needs breaking open. Great hurling clubs should be twinning themselves with aspirants from weaker counties, playing challenges, organising tournaments, giving coaching courses.

There should be an insistence, a demand, from Croke Park that counties play their club and juvenile hurling during the summer months, forget who's on holidays and who isn't, get the kids playing. In the end holidays will affect all teams the same way. Not playing in summer, as Dublin to its shame doesn't, hurts all the kids.

It will be great this summer on the sward, but we need more. Hurling needs ideas. It needs missionaries. It needs generosity. It's a community that has to expand and grow. As long as the dominant counties continue to be dominant hurling will survive but a national game, a treasure of a game, needs more support and more love.

Meanwhile? Enjoy.