It’s gas how the All-Ireland champions, especially when it’s not Kilkenny, invariably drive and dominate the narrative early the following season. The tone, both in the aftermath of that All-Ireland success, and how the All-Ireland champions appear to be kicking on, has followed a similar trend.

Tipperary were supposed to take over hurling when their young team beat Kilkenny in 2010. The young-guns from Clare were expected to dominate the decade after their 2013 success. After shoving Kilkenny into a shallow grave in the 2016 All-Ireland final, Tipp were expected to keep burying their neigbhours for fun in the coming seasons. Then Galway were expected to dominate the game after finally ending a 29-year famine in 2017.

None of that stuff happened but it still hasn’t suppressed the impulse to herald Limerick as the new oligarchs, the new conquerors expected to trample all beneath them in 2019. Of course Limerick aren’t transmitting that message themselves but it becomes easier for everyone else to propagate the theory when they smash Kilkenny to pieces in Nowlan Park.

The counter-argument in all of this is to say Limerick are going too well too early. The cynics will say that John Kiely needs to rein the players in or else they’ll blow up in high summer. Yet, now that they’ve bolted from the stable and have open ahead of them, how do you hold back a pack of stallion horses?

After the impressive win against Tipperary, management made a change in virtually every line for the Kilkenny match. They’re giving guys chances and they’re taking them with open arms.

Tom Condon was man of the match last week. Conor Boylan has been impressive in his first two league starts. Barry Murphy worked like an animal last week. Robbie Hanley was gunning for road too. Shane Dowling was a constant goal threat and yet he covered the hard yards back deep in the park.

What more can Kiely do? If he wants to start reining the team in, does he run them up mountains on Friday and Saturday so they’re not able to walk by Sunday? Where is the good in not going all-out for a game? Kiely is hardly going to start giving walkovers.

Performance is everything and Limerick are getting them every day. They’re also probably trying out different things, tweaking gameplans, fine-tuning puckout strategies. And Limerick have more of a licence to experiment with personnel now that they’re on six points and guaranteed to make a quarter-final.

Kiely hasn’t put a foot wrong to date.

Seamie Flanagan was obviously suspended for the Tipperary game after his red-card in Wexford Park but I wasn’t surprised he didn’t appear last Sunday. Maybe they’re just looking at different players but I don’t think Seamie did himself any favours by doing co-commentary with Oisin Langan for live streaming of the CIT-Mary I Fitzgibbon Cup quarter-final.

It may seem harmless but you can almost picture how management might have interpreted that move. As soon as I heard Seamie’s voice booming out of my laptop, I knew there may be some repercussions.

I’d say Kiely was thinking, ‘Hi kid, you will have plenty time for the media career, get the head back on the job at hand’.

Kiely has the back-up which allows him to leave big names on the bench whereas most other counties are still searching for new players during this campaign. After last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, Cork will have huge motivation to beat Limerick tomorrow but I still expect John Meyler to fire in a few new players and see if they can withstand the Limerick heat.

Today’s Fitzgibbon final will force Meyler’s hand but that won’t alter his approach because not having enough depth off the bench was the reason Cork didn’t beat Limerick last July.

Kilkenny still have the Ballyhale contingent and Richie Hogan and Cillian Buckley to come back but Brian Cody will continue to cast the net as wide as possible because he needs to.

Liam Sheedy said recently that he had 40 on the panel but 15 of them were on the treatment table. That has clearly tied Liam’s hands but I’d still like to know where more of these U21s from last year have gone? Especially when this side needs more pace in key areas.

Clare will be anxious to get a win after blowing up against Cork last week but the intrigue is added to tomorrow’s fixture with Davy Fitz coming back to town. He has faced Clare before with Waterford and Wexford in the championship but I’m nearly sure this is Fitzy’s first time coming to Ennis in the opposition corner. When he was Waterford manager, Clare spent those seasons in Division 2 and 1B.

I’ve been in that position before with Dublin but a league game is far less pressurised than coming to Ennis trying to knock Clare out of the championship.

In that context, Fitzy isn’t going to be too caught up on coming back to the Park. If anything, he’ll be trying to impress on his players how hard Clare are to beat there.

Home advantage is so important that I fancy wins tomorrow for Clare, Limerick and Tipperary. The Parnell Park factor could be significant for Dublin against Waterford. Mattie Kenny will want to make Parnell a fortress again but he’ll also demand a much improved performance after last week’s poor display in Pearse Stadium.

Galway will beat Offaly by as much as they want and

Offaly are already as good as booked for the trap door game for the dreaded drop to 2A.

Twenty-five years on from the 1994 All-Ireland final, Offaly and Limerick have never been further apart. Offaly are in danger of slipping into the abyss while if Limerick whip Cork tomorrow, you’ll have some wisecracks talking about splitting Limerick in two.

Yet history has shown that there ain’t no Nostradamus’s hanging around this hurling scene.