Needing to win a semi-final and reach their first Munster final this century. Needing at any rate to perform in a semi-final under Anthony Daly, a department in which they were conspicuously more successful under his predecessor, Cyril Lyons.

Needing to run their 2006 championship race by, for a change, dictating from the front rather than coming from behind. Needing to reach the All Ireland series by the direct route instead of via the highways and byways.

Not that defeat today will necessarily prevent Clare from making the last four again. But at this juncture in their development under Daly, his charges' sense of self-esteem demands that they win a big match as opposed to merely hurling well in one. Something to help them stand a little taller, hurl a little more freely, be worth a point or two to them next time out.

For all its nutritional qualities, a diet of porridge gets boring without a spoonful of honey.

Were Semple Stadium wide enough to allow them field five half-forwards they'd be away in a hack.

Diarmuid McMahon and Tony Carmody will give Cork's sheet-anchor line plenty of it physically and can be relied on for a couple of points from play each;

McMahon, as a former defender, doesn't do ball tricks but is blessed with an accurate shot.

As it is, however, the Clare attack is long on athletes who'll run all day and short on neat, tidy lads capable of snapping up whatever crumbs Cork allow them around the edge of the square.

We return, not for the first time, to Niall Gilligan. If Daly's side are to go hard on silverware this season, the Sixmilebridge man must do more than simply point the frees. God knows that he doesn't lack the cuteness for it.

Word has it that Alan Markham will start at fullforward, but he'll surely be deployed as an extra halfback or third midfielder in the event that the challengers have a lead to defend in the closing quarter. Preventing the Cork runners steaming through from deep remains the overarching priority at every stage of the game.

Most previewers allow themselves the indulgence of taking one leap of faith per summer. This is ours. A small such leap, combined with a suspicion that they might . . . might . . . be a little more wound up today than Cork, says Clare by a point.

CLARE D Fitzgerald; G O'Grady, B Lohan, F Lohan; D Hoey, S McMahon (c), G Quinn; B O'Connell, C Lynch; D McMahon, A Markham, T Carmody; B Nugent, T Grif"n, N Gilligan

CORK D Og Cusack; P Mulcahy (c), D O'Sullivan, B Murphy; J Gardiner, R Curran, S Og O hAilpin; T Kenny, J O'Connor; T McCarthy, N McCarthy, B O'Connor; K Murphy, B Corcoran, J Deane