Star billing for quartet on All-Ireland hurling semi-final weekend

This year's hurling championship began on 22 April. On that day, Galway beat Wexford and Kilkenny demolished Westmeath. The following day Limerick just about got over the line against Waterford and Clare left the floodgates opened and leaked five goals against Tipperary.

Now just 11 weeks later those four teams are the envy of the hurling world. Is it too much too soon? For me it is, shove it back a few weeks, all will be fine.

The festival of hurling is upon us, the acts are ready and the main stage is set. I'm hoping now the performances live up to the billing. How this weekend will play out for those four teams depends hugely on who gets the nod from injuries and knocks. So rather than focus on the maybes I’m going to focus on the definites and for me the men on whose shoulders rests a large responsibility of their team making it to the major showpiece on Sunday, 23 July.

These are the players, if they can produce a performance, the rest will follow and will ultimately lead to victory. On the flipside then that man from the opposition who will be tasked with shutting this player down, so helping to find the win for their team.

So here we go.

First up it’s Galway and no shocks here that their key player is Conor Whelan. The Kinvara man is in a rich vein of form. Last two performances and two man of the match displays. He does not mind how it comes, but it must come in and fast.

His stats back up what he can do when he gets the ball. He is tenth in the overall scoring charts but the rest are all free takers and he is out in front in the race for the golden hurl with seven goals bagged already. He is now the leader of the forward line and is being ably assisted by Kevin Cooney who is helping to create space for Whelan to