The great day dawns as this year's Guinness All-Ireland hurling championship reaches the experimental stage with the re-entry of the defeated finalists from Munster and Leinster, Tipperary and Kilkenny.
Tomorrow sees the main event in Thurles where Kilkenny face Galway in the first of the new quarter-finals. It's a little unfortunate that this epoch-making weekend already looks to be dancing to the music of a well-worn LP.
Ulster's champions will hardly fare any better this afternoon than in any other year and Galway take the field at Thurles, haplessly untouched by any of the new hurling season's benefits.
Injury, lack of serious match practice and battle-hardened opponents all line a familiar via dolorosa for the western challenge.
Kilkenny, on the other hand, have emerged from the wreckage of the Leinster final and taken the novel opportunity afforded by the new championship structure.
This is something of an irony for Galway as the calendar-year structure of the league was expected to give the county plenty of match practice in the run-up to their championship season.
Instead they were rewarded for a good league campaign by advancing directly to the semi-finals which inconveniently won't be played until next month, after both the championship quarter and semi-finals. By that stage, Galway's championship challenge will be either formidably established or sitting in the file marked '1997'.
In addition to the provincial campaign in Leinster, Kilkenny have had last weekend's league match in Cork to serve as laboratory conditions as Nicky Brennan and his selectors attempt to identify the most potent formula at their disposal.
Visitors to the Kilkenny dressing-room after the provincial final were struck by a sense of frustrated disappointment rather than the desolation felt in the Tipperary camp a week previously. By this day last week in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Kilkenny's disgruntlement had become something chirpier as manager Brennan realised that he had considerably improved his team by trial and error.
By how much has it been improved? It wouldn't do to lose sight of Cork's inadequacies - half their championship attack injured and no county training because of club-tied players.
Nonetheless there was a quality to Kilkenny's hurling that suggested the team had established some sort of rhythm as well as commanding performances from the central players. There is also the matter of tempo and the Leinster finalists' familiarity with higher levels of competitive hurling.
Galway can be forgiven for thinking that little has changed in their world. They are still required to go in at the deep end with little preparation. This year's Connacht final may have served only one purpose for the winners - to bring the event to a conclusion - and even that was expensively bought by the sickening injury sustained by Joe Rabbitte.
Back at the beginning of the season, Galway attracted sizeable backing and it was easy to understand why. The county's underage record in recent years has been excellent and there's a generous supply of hurlers. Cyril Farrell, under whom all championship success in modern times has been achieved, had also returned to take over the team.
Injuries deprive the team of some big men, besides Rabbitte, and also place a slight question mark over Eugene Cloonan whose foot complaint mercifully turned out not to be, as initially suspected, a broken bone but may still not be fully healed.
Cloonan may end up at full forward instead of Kevin Broderick because the attack looks short of physical focal points with Rabbitte injured and Joe Cooney starting at centrefield. There's no doubt that Cloonan is prolific but whether he can carry a scoring burden at this level at such a young age has to be a matter of concern, especially with Kilkenny's defence looking more settled than for a long time.
There is more hurling power in Galway's centrefield than Kilkenny's but Philip Larkin and Andy Comerford have mobility and energy. Cooney and Liam Burke don't have endless stamina and will concentrate on keeping the ball moving.
The most surprising of the Galway selections was the dropping of Tom Helebert and his replacement at right corner back by under-21 panellist Finbarr Gantley. Maybe the choice reflects unease at Charlie Carter's good form for Kilkenny and concern that the veteran Helebert would struggle to contain his man, but it represents a risk given Gantley's inexperience and Helebert's traditionally good form in All-Ireland matches.
Kilkenny benefit
D J Carey's form is causing alarm in Kilkenny. After a league campaign when he terrorised defences and appeared ready to lead the county's championship charge, the modern game's most celebrated forward has fallen silent in recent times.
In Nigel Shaughnessy he probably faces a purer hurler than the athletic Sean O hAilpin of Cork and certainly than Wexford's captain Rod Guiney so it will be interesting to see if the change of emphasis yields results - unless Vinnie Maher, an unusual choice on the other wing, has been fitted for the job.
Farrell's influence on this match is quite strong even in prospect. This can be explained by the speed with which Galway often left the traps in the past when he was manager and also to an extent by the fascinating semi-final of 11 years ago between the same counties.
On that occasion Farrell's selection similarly aroused scepticism but, built on a two-man attack with a deep-lying full forward, Pearse Piggott, the team destroyed Kilkenny who had been strong favourites.
This time there are, however, crucial differences. In 1986, Galway had hardly any injury concerns and had already reached the previous year's All-Ireland final. Kilkenny hadn't had much of a test against a fading Offaly team in the Leinster final, a far cry from this summer's opportunity to take a beating and retire to the drawing board to improve the blueprint.
Tomorrow's model looks set to travel.
Galway: P Costello; F Gantley, W Burke, B Feeney; N Shaughnessy, C Moore, V Maher; J Cooney (capt), L Burke; J Campbell, J McGrath, F Forde; A Kerins, K Broderick, E Cloonan.
Kilkenny: A Ronan; E O'Connor, L Simpson, W O'Connor; L Keoghan, P O'Neill, D O'Neill; P Larkin, A Comerford; P Barry, C Brennan, D J Carey (capt); P J Delaney, M Phelan, C Carter.
