So far, the season's been one long learning curve. And they're still learning, the only difference being that the current lesson is how to cope with defeat rather than victory. All week, many of Waterford's players - under directions - have kept their heads down, ducking and weaving to avoid the fall-out from the Munster final replay defeat by Clare.

"All we want to do is focus on next Sunday's match," says captain Stephen Frampton. "We want to forget about all the hassle and leave it to the powers that be to handle it. If we start complaining, people will construe it as sour grapes and that's the last thing we want."

It is also the last thing that Waterford deserve - a team who have brought a vibrancy to the campaign which, ironically, is a wee bit reminiscent of Clare's arrival onto the scene three years ago. Indeed, the Guinness All-Ireland Hurling Championship quarter-final encounter with Galway at Croke Park may be the team's fifth outing (record: won 2; drew 1; lost 1), but it now becomes Waterford's most important game of the season.

It is also Waterford's third consecutive Sunday of championship duty, a statistic which prompts Frampton to talk of "a hectic schedule" but one which he would prefer to see extended.

When people talk of the demands placed on Waterford's hurlers these days, Frampton quietly observes that he feels like a professional sportsman. Amateur players with professional demands - in mind and in body. "We only had one training session this week, on Wednesday night, and I'll admit the legs were a bit tired. It just involved a bit of hurling, a few sprints and some reaction work. That's all. We're not going to get any fitter than we are now, so that's all that was needed."

It has been a long time since Waterford could afford the luxury of just one training session in a week. Back in January and February the stamina work started on the beach at Tramore, with regular sessions on Sunday mornings. Since then, they've been at it three nights a week in Walsh Park and Fraher's Field in Dungarvan, doing the work any serious championship contenders need to do away from the glare of publcity. "We've put in a huge amount of training," says Frampton, one of the 1998 season's success stories and a "player of the month" for June.

While the county is full of talk about what happened, or didn't happen, in Thurles last Sunday, Frampton is insistent that all the players want to do is think about Sunday's match. As one Waterford selector, Greg Fives, remarked earlier in the week, "the sun came up on Monday morning and we had an All-Ireland quarterfinal too look forward to." Frampton adopts a similarly positive approach to the task which lies ahead. "The team is prepared," he says, "and we know we haven't won anything yet. All we've done is do a lot better than a lot of other Waterford teams have done in recent times. But we have plenty of confidence, and know that we're good enough. We know that we're nearly there, that we're up with the best teams in the country. "We've got used to winning this season. When you start winning, it is hard to get accustomed to losing - and it is harder to accept losing. It all culminates in a feeling of confidence every time you go out for a match."

Waterford's supporters have become acquainted with early morning trips out of the county for championship matches, and Sunday's exodus to Croke Park will continue the side's quest for hurling's golden grail. However, there is no recent championship tradition between the two sides, with Waterford emerging as winners the last time they met back in 1966, a time when Galway actually competed in the Munster championship. The dice can roll one of two ways for Waterford on Sunday, and Frampton has weighed up both theories in his mind.

"It could be an advantage for us playing three weeks in a row," he says. "We have a lot of hard matches behind us, and we have the stickwork and skills that you can only develop in the intensity of a championship match. And we know the intensity of a match won't get to us."

The other side of the coin, however, is that Frampton believes Galway - with only one game, against Roscommon, behind them prior to the quarter-final - could be "fresh, very determined, hungry and mad eager" for the match. "And they won't have too many injuries, or lads carrying niggling knocks into the match," he adds. Yet, even with tired limbs, it's unlikely that any team will be as eager as Waterford come Sunday afternoon for their latest test in coping with the heightened expectations of an entire county.