As Munster trails off, Leinster provides the drama

It's kind of funny. At the start of the year, or even still now to be honest, all the talk is about the Munster championship.

Namely, about how competitive it is, and how far ahead of Leinster hurling it is.

Prime example - when myself and Derek McGrath were on Sunday Game duty two weeks ago, Clare played Cork while Galway were hosting Kilkenny, both games scheduled for 2pm.

We decided to watch the big game of the day, Clare-Cork, first and then watch back the other game at 4pm.

Well, how wrong we were! The game in Salthill was the one!

In Munster, Limerick-Cork was a disaster, Clare-Cork was a disaster, Clare-Tipp... another disaster. By a disaster, I mean they were all one-sided non-competitive games.

If you had to go by last weekend's talk, Limerick and Tipperary was supposed to be a walk in the park for the hosts - it was far from that.

By the time Limerick and Clare meet in Ennis on Sunday, all three teams could be known depending on the Waterford-Cork result, meaning that game won't mean much, and Cork-Tipp will be reduced to a dead rubber.

So, depending on results, by the end of the round-robin series, the majority of matches in Munster may have been either one sided or dead rubbers.

Setting loyalties aside, from the perspective of a pure hurling fan, you want to see tight games and results going down to the wire.

Contrary to current perceptions, Munster hurling is not as far ahead of Leinster as people imagine. Sure, the two leading contenders for Liam McCarthy may be from Munster, but can you honestly say that if either of them took on Galway or Kilkenny that you'd be over confident? Absolutely not.

If Clare were to finish third in Munster, with Dublin or Wexford possibly finshing in third in Leinster, a game between any