IT'S not the championship, it's not a league final and now, following events at Casement Park during the week, it's no longer a match freighted with implications for the knockout stages the way we assumed it would be. Neither head in Nowlan Park today will roll as long as Dublin lose in Nenagh. But still, what's not to like? Ger Loughnane in one corner, Brian Cody in the other.

Arguably the greatest manager of the modern generation against inarguably the most successful manager of the modern generation. Let's get it on, gentlemen.

Loughnane and Cody. The similarities between them are as obvious as they are manifold. Each attended what the GAA pages love to describe as a "famous hurling nursery". They were contemporaries at teacher-training college in St Patrick's, Drumcondra. They won an All Star within a season of each other in the mid-1970s. They guided their respective counties to McCarthy Cup success. Such has been their stature that they've lent or are lending their names to hurling eras; the mid1990s has frequently been shorthanded as the Loughnane era, while it's scarcely an exaggeration to assert that we're living through the age of Cody.

Whatever fate befalls them and their teams this season, moreover, neither will be able to blame failure on the paucity of tools at hand; the pair are managing counties that between them have won five of the seven All Ireland minor championships decided this century as well as the last four All Ireland under-21 titles.

Both of them can, without any danger of one's breaching the Trade Descriptions Act, be termed hurling obsessives. Loughnane declared to Tony Considine a few years back that there "wasn't a minute in the day" he didn't think about hurling. Cody doesn't do confessional, but if he did you suspect he'd say the same. Still on the subject of similarities, both probably haven't been given enough credit for their graciousness in defeat; think of Loughnane's magnanimity after Limerick caught Clare on the finishing line at the Gaelic Grounds in 1996 or Cody's refusal to blame Seamus Roche after the 2005 All Ireland semi-final.

When it comes to loquaciousness, on the other hand, there's only one winner. Loughnane can say anything and, let's face it, frequently has; Cody, in notable contrast, talks plainsong rather than baroque, often giving the impression of a man who runs every word past an internal censor who parses it for any possible negative connotations. By a similar token, different circumstances attend the fact that each is a prophet with less than unbounded honour in his own county. In Loughnane's case the cause is clear: much of the goodwill he'd built up in Clare was squandered during his subsequent incarnation as a pundit. In Cody's case it's altogether more nebulous, altogether more puzzling. Four All Irelands in eight years, yet his name and achievements rarely engender more than grudging respect from the majority of Kilkenny supporters.

Is it because Cody isn't, and has never tried to be, all things to all men or allowed himself to become bigger than his teams? Is it because he keeps himself and his thoughts strictly to himself?

Is it because he's not particularly clubbable, except on All Star nights when he lets his hair down and stays up shooting the breeze with all comers over pints of Guinness? Whatever the roots of this consumer resistance, the man's standing is higher outside the county than inside it. Which, of course, says infinitely more about the myopia and boneheadedness of so many hurling folk on Noreside than it does about Brian Cody.

To Mick O'Flynn, for seven years the county's trainer under Cody, "the challenge of reinventing a team" is a primary source of motivation for the man.

To Johnny Walsh, a selector with him for six years, it's a blend of love and obsession. "He loves hurling, he loves Kilkenny hurling and he loves to win, " says Walsh. "These are the things that drive him on. If he finished tomorrow, he'd miss it."

Although they won't find the name of today's opponents engraved on his heart when he dies, that's not Galway's fault; two of Kilkenny's five championship defeats under Cody . . . as many as inflicted by Cork . . . have occurred against the westerners, the first of them the 2001 All Ireland semi-final when, like the Scots at Bannockburn, they sent him hamewards tae think again. Famously, he did. The bottom line with Cody is he always thinks again.

Loughnane carries an equally big stick, speaks less softly but offers more in the way of immediate charisma.

What he's brought above all to his adopted county, according to Galway hurling board chairman Miko Ryan, is "very high expectations". They have great expectations of him. He has great expectations of them. Symbiosis.

"We all expect Ger is going to do well, " says Ryan. "The talent is there, there's a big buzz around the place . . .

more people are talking about hurling in Galway than for a while . . . and the players are responding. Okay, it mightn't have happened for them against Dublin at Parnell Park, but it's visible in training. Everybody is taking responsibility. That's very encouraging."

Loughnane's casting couch has predictably been seeing a good deal of action. In their four National League outings, Galway have employed three goalkeepers, seven midfielders and six wing-forwards. Yet there have been near-constants too; Shane Kavanagh at full-back, John Lee at centre-back, Mark Kerins at centre-forward and Eugene Cloonan at full-forward have all started three games apiece, as has Kevin Broderick at top of the left. For better or worse, Loughnane appears to have already settled on the composition of the spinal column of this intriguing new patient of his.

"He's a driven man, " announces one Galway player who, perhaps unsurprisingly, wishes to remain anonymous.

"He's very organised and professional.

He believes in what he's doing. Huge leadership qualities." Loughnane's allegedly paint-blistering dressingroom reaction to the Parnell Park defeat? "Ah, he told us a few home truths, but that was it." Handier to print the legend than the truth.

In one sense the Feakle man won't have been unhappy with the defensive softness that allowed Tipperary in for three goals last Sunday in Salthill. It will furnish him with a short-term agenda, marshmallow defending being eradicable, and it's far better to score 0-26 and concede 3-13 than the other way around. Interestingly, the manager was quick to exonerate Derek Hardiman for the goals afterwards, although one remembers a previous swashbuckling right-half back from Mullagh being retreaded as a full-back with limited success. And for all that Damien Hayes clearly relished his midfield change of grass seven days ago, the comparison Loughnane drew with Kilkenny's reinvention of Cha Fitzpatrick was inapt;

Fitzpatrick is a processor of ball, Hayes a finisher of ball. This mustn't become the kind of theft-and-payment job that will involve Peter and Paul.

Loughnane, who has long regaled listeners with his reaction to Cody's appointment as Kilkenny manager ("we'll all have to watch out now"), announced last Sunday that today's match would constitute the ultimate test for Galway. In the circumstances, 'test' rather than 'ultimate' is the operative word. Next time the sides meet, it won't be a test.

Loughnane and Cody. Loughnane versus Cody. The 2007 championship demands it.