POPULAR truism number one: Galway produce truckloads of talented underage hurlers. Popular truism number two: Galway produce truckloads of talented underage hurlers, but too many of them are too similar. Discuss, supporting your argument with relevant quotation and examining the implications for Ger Loughnane's prospects of leading the county to their first McCarthy Cup success since 1988.

Francis Forde speaks of it as a barrier. Difficult to define, invisible to the naked eye but a barrier nonetheless. A barrier to the progress of young hurlers that exists in Galway but doesn't exist in, to take the most obvious example, Kilkenny. Is it tradition? Is it a disparity in quality of the two counties' respective club championships? Might it be in any way a function of internal politics? Forde doesn't know.

All he knows is that the Galway players of his generation were as good as, and better than, their Kilkenny counterparts at the age of 19, but inferior to them at the age of 25.

It baffled him then. It still baffles him now.

"Andy Comerford, Philly Larkin, Brian McEvoy. We could match them man for man at underage level. No problem. But they progressed and we didn't." By the time Comerford, Larkin and McEvoy won All Ireland medals in 2000, Forde was an ex-intercounty hurler, having walked away the previous season at the age of 25, a victim of disillusionment and shattered confidence, a poster boy for Galway's lost generation. These past couple of years, Forde has been a minor selector with the county. The teenage talent is, he's seen at first hand, as plentiful as it was in his day. The chances of that talent making it through undamaged to senior . . . well, that's an entirely different matter.

To get the first truism out of the way, no, it's not a myth.

Galway do produce wave after wave of capable young hurlers. The roll-call of the county's record of success at minor level, if not at under-21, over the past decade leaves no room for argument. The hits just keep on comin'. But one subtext to that narrative rears its head almost immediately, as John Hardiman, who coached Galway to successive All Ireland minor triumphs in 1999 and 2000, explains.

"It's not the two or three outstanding players who'll win you a minor All Ireland, it's the 12 or 13 lads alongside them, " says Hardiman. "A balanced team. That's why we've been so strong in the grade.

Very good underage structures that have given us a bigger base of players than most counties. But just because we win a minor All Ireland doesn't mean we'll get any more future senior players than the team we beat in the final or the semi-final. They'll get the same two or three very good lads the way that we will. It's just that, at minor level, our next 12 are better than their next 12. But that doesn't follow through to senior."

As it happened, Hardiman's 1999 outfit, who overturned Eoin Kelly's Tipperary in the final, threw up an inordinate number of future seniors: Fergal Moore, Richie Murray, Ger Farragher, Damien Hayes, David Forde.

The team generously served its purpose in the wider context. Now it's time for a new wave to wash up on the beach.

Here's another reason why.

No fewer than five of the attack that started the 2001 All Ireland senior final . . . Mark and Alan Kerins, Eugene Cloonan, Kevin Broderick and Fergal Healy . . . featured against Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds three weeks ago.

Moreover, Broderick lined out in the 1993 All Ireland minor final, with Healy coming on as a sub the same day; Alan Kerins lined out in the 1994 minor final; Cloonan and Mark Kerins lined out in the 1996 minor final. It's neither unfair nor unreasonable to wonder whether all of them are the hurlers they were four or five years ago, even allowing for the comparative lack of mileage on Broderick's clock. Time, with knobs on, for that new wave.

What qualities will the coming generation need?

Patience and physical presence, says Forde, who joined the Galway senior panel at 19 and has repented his haste at leisure. "My one piece of advice to them would be to take their time. Make sure your body is prepared. So when you get the knocks, you're physically able for them and your confidence won't be hit." Although it wasn't a conscious decision on the part of the management, Forde adds, the minor teams he's been involved with recently tended to contain bigger players than the minor teams he played on in the early 1990s. Sean Glynn and Keith Kilkenny are two such specimens he's hoping to see in senior ranks in due course.

At least fixity of tenure won't be an issue for Loughnane. It was for Mattie Murphy who, following two stints as Galway senior manager, spent the last four years with the minors, leading them to the Irish Press Cup twice. As an example of what can be achieved by a coach who's not required to look over his shoulder, Murphy points to the case of John Tennyson, Kilkenny's stopgap full-back in the 2005 All Ireland semi-final and taken for three goals by Niall Healy. Thirteen months later, Tennyson won an All Ireland at centreback. "Because Brian Cody had faith in his man. He decided early in the year that Tennyson was his centre-back and he left him there. And because of Cody's success down the years, he had the licence . . .the space and time . . . to do that, even if a few knives might have been waiting in the wings for him had it not worked out. That's what's needed in Galway and that's what Ger will now get."

Murphy's minor teams yielded no fewer than three exceptionally promising goalkeepers in Aidan Ryan, who played against Limerick three weeks ago, Mark Herlihy and James Skehill, sub-goalie at Parnell Park last Sunday; the law of averages insists that one of them will make into a reliable intercounty netminder. John Lee, captain of the 2004 All Ireland minor winners, is the current talking horse at centre-back, with Murphy maintaining that Ger Mahon has "a lot of the attributes" necessary for the equally problematic position of full-back. "They tried him too early with the seniors, and putting him in at corner-back and wing-back didn't suit him, but Ger is still filling out and with a bit of confidence under his belt he could be a fine player in a couple of years."

Elsewhere, Vincent Mullins, manager of 2005's victorious under-21 side, holds a candle for Kerill Wade, yet another light-framed Galway forward "but a proven performer on the big day".

Apropos of the greatest maroon-and-white hope of them all, meanwhile, the memory of the spendthrift of talent inflicted on Francis Forde's generation leads both Mullins and Murphy to believe that Joe Canning has made the right decision in opting to take a year out. "Joe is still only 18, " Mullins points out. "A big 18, but only 18. You have to protect these guys."

As Francis Forde, who in parting announces that he's absolutely confident Ger Loughnane will pull off "one mighty win" with Galway before adding that what happens in their next match will be the key, knows better than most.