Shane Dowling on Waterford v Limerick: 'This could be the maddest game of hurling we'll ever witness'

Strap yourself in and hold on tight when you take your seat at Semple Stadium on Sunday afternoon. You might be about to see something even the glorious Munster Hurling Championship hasn't shown us before.

Waterford and Limerick get under way at the home of hurling just after lunchtime in their round robin opener and the new-look version of the ancient compeition might be about to reach new levels of hysteria.

"I'm throwing it out there - this could be the maddest game of hurling that we've ever witnessed," Shane Dowling told the RTÉ Sport podcast this week. On paper, it's hard to see where the potential for mania comes from. Limerick, chasing a fourth title in a row and fifth in six years, appear at their destructive best.

Waterford, last in an All-Ireland final in 2020 - a chastening loss to Sunday's opponents - and without a Liam McCarthy since 1959 are long-odds underdogs to upset John Kiely's remorseless juggernaut.

But then. There's the Davy Factor. Davy Fitzgerald goes into the first Championship of his second coming as Waterford manager on the back of a league campaign that your grandad would describe as 'middlng'. Played five, won two, lost two and drew one.

The winter/spring Déise version was abundant with Davyisms. Interesting line-ups, positional switches and experimental puckouts. But if Waterford are to spring the mother of all surprises on Sunday, the former Clare goalkeeper is going to have to come up with something new, ingenius and deadly.

"In fairness to Davy [Fitzgerald], if nothing else, he's an extremely deep thinker about the game," said former Treaty star Downling. "There's been so much talk about Barry Nash going up the field, how many people do you leave inside, man-marking etc etc.

"He's definitely