The upshot was that Waterford, having spent a month getting their excuses in early, took 35 minutes to realise they were in a championship match and another 10 to realise they could win it. The abundance of positives they had justifiable liberty to accentuate afterwards (James Murray's drive at centre-back, Ken McGrath's points from midfield, Big Dan's latest renaissance, the knowledge that a returned Eoin Kelly would be good for another two or three scores from out the field, their eventual placement in the soft qualifying group) marked a first:

the first time in history a team that lost a championship match by eight points emerged with their glass more than half-full.

Westmeath's problems last weekend were predictable and predicted beforehand. Executing the skills quickly and competently under pressure is a task beyond their compass just yet. Too many of their defenders shovelled blind clearances straight to lurking Kilkenny men who smacked them over the bar. Darren McCormack, their best performer against Dublin, ran into trouble and was bottled up too frequently. For scores Westmeath were too dependent on winning frees for Andrew Mitchell to convert. Not that we could have remotely expected otherwise.

Seamus Qualter and his troops having poured all their planning, dreams and energies into Kilkenny's visit, today's fixture arrives rather too quickly for recovery as well as for comfort.

Expect a dip rather than a lift in their performance as a consequence. Waterford to win by more than the 14 Kilkenny won by.

WESTMEATH M Briody; C Jordan, C Murtagh, P Greville; J Shaw, D McCormack, N Gavin; B Connaughton, E Loughlin; D Devine, B Murtagh, A Mitchell; B Kennedy D Carty, J Clark WATERFORD C Hennessy; E Murphy, T Feeney, D Coffey; T Browne, J Murray, B Phelan; K McGrath, D Bennett; D Shanahan, S Prendergast, S O'Sullivan; J Mullane, M Walsh, E McGrath