GAELIC GAMES:Champions Kilkenny got the Guinness All-Ireland hurling final weekend off to a slightly surprising start by dropping Carrickshock forward Richie Power for tomorrow's championship climax against Limerick.

Power, one of the most talented young forwards in the game, loses his place to Aidan Fogarty.

It's a sign of Kilkenny's strength in depth that they can bring last year's All-Ireland man of the match in for the final. Fogarty has been afflicted by injury and hasn't really rediscovered that form this season, but he also entered last year's final as a dark horse.

The other talking point of the selection is the retention of goalkeeper PJ Ryan, who has a surgical plate in an arm after sustaining a fracture making a save in the semi-final. But after three weeks he has evidently satisfied manager Brian Cody and his selectors that he is fit.

Kilkenny remain hot favourites coming into tomorrow's final against a resurgent Limerick team fuelled by an unusual combination of exuberance at their unexpectedly good season and resentment that they weren't accorded sufficient credit for the semi-final win over Waterford, whose departure deprived the hurling world of a widely anticipated rerun of last May's NHL final.

The most striking aspect of Limerick's great progress is the way in which an apparently moribund team has not alone risen from the wreckage of so much disappointed promise but fired the passions of a county that had all but given up.

Richie Bennis has been a bravura front man for the operation and has succeeded spectacularly in folding together the rising confidence of the players with the growing faith of the crowd.

This year the three-part win over Tipperary slowly brought a boisterous self-belief to the team and every outing since has been a step forward, even the Munster final defeat by Waterford because it ultimately paved the way for the All-Ireland semi-final win over the same opponents.

Tick off the components: a full-back line that has become one of the best in the game, an industrious centrefield unconcerned by its technical limitations and a varied attack where unheralded players have left their mark and those with reputations have lived up to them.

The basic premise of a surprise is that Limerick and their crowd create wildness in the air and in that unpredictability the outsiders thrive and Kilkenny, like all favourites, struggle to reverse an unexpected momentum.

Kilkenny's status in the game, however, reflects how little they take for granted. Reservations that they haven't come through as hard a campaign as Limerick overlook the fact that the Leinster champions never have as hard a campaign as their Munster opponents. Yet they have won four of their past five finals.

In fact the one they lost came after the hardest campaign, in 2004, featuring defeat by Wexford and a draw with Clare. Limerick's defence will be buoyant after restricting Waterford's menacing attack to their lowest score of the season. By crowding, harassment and tight marking they can make a start. Galway did this and kept Henry Shefflin scoreless from play but eventually Kilkenny worked out - as they generally do - how to manipulate more space and then exploited it.

Stephen Lucey and Brian Geary are a strong defensive spine but will have to cope not only with the alternating attentions of Shefflin and Martin Comerford but also with the pace of Eddie Brennan.

Mark Foley is likely to see the same faces. The veteran has played a big role in his team's Croke Park rebirth by hitting quality ball into Andrew O'Shaughnessy's corner, but for all his guile and determination he will struggle for pace and under dropping ball.

Two years ago Limerick recovered in the second half against Kilkenny by attacking the dropping ball rather than contesting it. Peter Lawlor's display was vital but he's not at centrefield tomorrow and not hurling consistently at that level either.

Tomorrow Donal O'Grady and Mike O'Brien will do all the hard work for Limerick in terms of disrupting puck-outs to protect their half backs, covering Derek Lyng's runs and battling forward, but neither of them is equipped to duel with James Fitzpatrick in the way Damien Hayes did for much of the Galway match.

Fitzpatrick won't need much space to do his damage.

Michael Fitzgerald has come from being a sub to second top scorer this season but an injury affected his game in the semi-final and the team's points total dipped accordingly. They made good the deficit with goals, but putting five past Kilkenny is hardly a realistic hope so Fitzgerald's best form will be required.

Beside him Ollie Moran needs to relocate his Munster form, particularly as Kilkenny have John Tennyson on the bench if Brian Hogan gets into trouble.

Noel Hickey's hamstring is another concern for the favourites because Brian Begley's physical presence was a focal point for three of the goals against Waterford. If fit, Hickey will get in the way of the better deliveries and clean up the poorer specimens. But for Limerick to come through they need to upset expectations in all three sectors and frustrate Kilkenny to the point where the crowd becomes a factor.

The grimmer prospect is that the champions go for the jugular early just as they did in the last two finals, 2000 and 2002, they entered at such short odds, when Offaly and Clare - teams, remember, with two All-Irelands - were taken for early goals and ended up battling for survival, struggles they both lost emphatically. It's been a great, redemptive year for Limerick but it's gone as far as it's going.