Beware the provincial rollercoaster's sudden stop

The dullness and disruption of pandemic life threw a veil of vagueness over memory.

Was that match last summer? The winter before? Hard to say.

The return of the round-robin formats for the Leinster and Munster hurling championships this season has felt like a reunion with old friends.

But, in fact, it’s only the third season of the league-knockout structure.

So, this weekend’s situation of most teams still having a fighting chance heading into the final round remains somewhat of a novelty.

The only similar script was in 2019. Galway, who had been All-Ireland champions and runners-up in the previous two years, topped the Leinster championship with five points heading into the final round of games.

A draw against Dublin in Parnell Park would have been enough to secure their place in the provincial final. And only the unlikely combination of a Dublin win and a draw between Kilkenny and Wexford could knock them out on scoring difference. Unlikely but not impossible...

"We thought the form was coming at the right time for us," then Galway manager Micheál Donoghue recalls.

"We could have won or lost the Wexford game at the death, ended up drawing, then going to Nowlan Park and getting a good result. So it was still in our hands.

"Conor Whelan came off early and we were down a few. We just never really got into the game."

It was a tight affair throughout but even the long-awaited return of Joe Canning from injury didn’t put Dublin away.

Donoghue was aware that Galway's nightmare scenario could be unfolding when the hosts pulled clear in the closing stages.

Following the final whistle, the Galway players and management waited for their worst fears to be confirmed by Lee Chin’s injury-time equalising free in Wexford Park.

"We knew that a