They've earned their days in the sun.

Having started the championship as favourites, Cork start the All Ireland final as favourites. That's only logical. Nothing has happened since May to change the situation. John Allen's side have put scarcely a foot wrong in the meantime, even on those days when they weren't overly impressive.

Their least impressive day was undoubtedly the evening of the All Ireland quarterfinal against Limerick at Semple Stadium, where the underdogs fell only one point short of pulling off the shock of the decade. Yet I'm not sure Cork received the credit they deserved for surviving that scare.

Limerick, remember, had been one of the form teams of the first half of the season.

They were unbeaten in the National League up till the final. Had they trained on afterwards instead of imploding, they'd have been widely expected to put it up to Cork in a championship encounter.

And that's exactly what transpired; Limerick got their house back in order after the fiasco against Clare, rediscovered their pride and really put it up to the McCarthy Cup holders.

And still Cork survived.

Where another team would have panicked, they held their nerve. Where another team would have resorted to blazing the ball out of defence without looking, they kept playing hurling. Ronan Curran helped work the sliotar up the field for Ben O'Connor to shoot the decisive point. It was a score that epitomised why Cork are going for three in a row.

The All Ireland semi-final provided another illustration of what makes the champions the outfit they are. Waterford went into the game on a high, were in touch all the way through but trailed by a point as Ken McGrath stepped up to try and save the day from long range. A doubly significant cameo then occurred.

First, Donal Og Cusack batted down McGrath's free . . .

but instead of batting it down straight in front of him, where it might well have gone to a Waterford forward, he batted it out to the side, out of the immediate danger zone.

There it was snapped up by the full-forward. Not the Waterford full-forward, though . . . the Cork full-forward. Brian Corcoran was back there to help out and put his hands to the wheel.

When the ball ran loose, his colleagues made sure they avoided conceding the free that would definitely have given Waterford a replay.

Brian Gavin sounded the long whistle and a group of players who've won the last two All Irelands jumped around like a bunch of under-14s who'd just won their first county final.

Again Cork had toughed it out. Again they'd shaded the issue by a point. Moments of significance lead to victories of significance, and this is a team that have had the stamp of significance about them ever since the players' strike of 2002. The strike bonded a group of young men together like brothers and marked them out as a team miles apart from the intercounty norm.

Today Cork are where they want to be. Contesting the All Ireland final, hot on the trail of the three-in-a-row.

They'll look at it in that order.

A word, by the by, about John Allen's decision to call in Roy Keane to talk to the troops a while back. It was an excellent idea from a psychological point of view.

When the bar is already set sky-high in players' minds, it can require an outsider to lift it a notch higher in order for the players to achieve their goals. Be sure that Keane's visit further sharpened Cork's focus.

If it's not unusual for Cork to start an All Ireland final as favourites, it's most unusual in recent years for Kilkenny to start one as underdogs. Such a status, while it will suit them, is perfectly understandable. Cork are the more settled team. Come to think of it, Cork must be one of the most settled teams in any sport anywhere on the planet right now.

Kilkenny, in marked contrast, are not settled. To make matters worse they've been unlucky with injuries, for as well as the hammer blow of JJ Delaney's damaged cruciate, John Tennyson's mishap early on against Clare deprived the young centre-back of valuable game time. The Carrickshock man would have benefited considerably from playing the full game; Brian Cody would have benefited considerably from observing Tennyson's strengths, weaknesses and errors in hightempo surroundings. That said, seeing Brian Hogan come in and step up to the plate will have cheered the manager.

Kilkenny's problems in defence aren't new, a situation which makes the loss of Delaney, who they moved to the full-back line this year in an effort to shore it up, all the more difficult to bear. In a perfect world, they'd go into battle today with Delaney at left-half back . . . his Hurler of the Year-winning position in 2003 . . . and Tommy Walsh on the other wing. Delaney and Walsh both being excellent in the air, that would give Kilkenny immense strength under the dropping ball in addition to boundless natural ability in the same area.

Instead, Walsh is almost certain to start in the fullback line and Delaney won't be on the field at all. Thus an important weapon in the challengers' defensive armoury has been removed. Worse, the supply of possession to their forwards will be damaged as a spin off, as Delaney and Walsh simply won't be there to pull balls out of the sky and drive them forward.

James McGarry's confidence may be fragile after his error against Clare and, with Kilkenny sending out different full-back lines all summer, won't have been helped by the succession of changes taking place in front of him. In contrast, Donal Og Cusack's confidence is limitless, assisted by the very fact that he's been playing behind the same full-back line for three seasons.

The unsettled look of the Kilkenny defence makes it all the more critical for their midfield and forwards to take up the slack. Cha Fitzpatrick was my man of the match against Clare. A big performance from him today will indicate that he has truly arrived. Jerry O'Connor is the master of the breaking ball, Fitzpatrick the young pretender. Break even here and the challengers must have every hope. Repeat their 18 wides of the semi-final, on the other hand, and they're dead in the water.

While Kilkenny have a lot less to lose than Cork in view of the fact that they're a team in transition missing one of the finest defenders of the last decade, their cause will not be helped by expecting Henry Shefflin to magic up double-digit scores on all the big occasions. It should be regarded as a bonus if he does. Some of the men around him, particularly Eddie Brennan and Richie Power, must come out of the woodwork.

We may not have Ali versus Frazier today. But we do have the Rock, Ben and Jerry, Big Brian and Little Joe versus Gorta, King Henry, Cha Fitz and Fast Eddie. It may not be the Thrilla in Manila. To hurling fans, though, it's more than special.

Cork to tough it out again for the last time in three years, probably by the usual point.