Hurling Nation: Kilkenny and Limerick can set up All-Ireland final rematch

We have two huge games this weekend. Two All-Ireland semi-finals. Anticipation building to fever pitch in Hurling Nation.

We wonder how much of the game has already been won or lost in the minds of the players and in the minds of the managers.

Everybody lives in the shadow of the green mountain that John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk have built.

Davy Fitzgerald and Henry Shefflin, who resigned from Waterford and Galway this week, always knew that standing in a dressing room saying "Lads, we're going to beat Limerick this year" could leave a man looking like a dreamer lost in a harsh reality.

Every year, Limerick come to Croke Park and don't do much different, they just do it better. They do it better whether you like it or not.

Clare play Kilkenny on Saturday. Brian Lohan, in his fifth season of managing Clare, has seen his journey overshadowed by other teams.

Limerick always in the way in Munster. And two years now, Lohan's team have lost All-Ireland semi-finals to Kilkenny.

This summer, Clare have often resembled their manager. Hard-working, at times brilliant, always honest. But they haven't been hugely creative and are still no closer to Limerick.

It's hard to measure if they have progressed or regressed. Either way, the movement is marginal.

But Lohan must stand in the dressing room tomorrow and convince his warriors that they can take Kilkenny and then take Limerick.

The warriors looking back at him know that at this level, the game comes down to inches, and the key elements that move them: Luck, free-taking, goalkeepers and coaches.

Derek Lyng hasn't had a multitude of generational stars and a conveyer belt of high quality extras like his predecessor, but they still have the mentality.

Kilkenny are maybe the only county who see