Sleepers awake indeed. And so that dearly beloved and frequently reheated Tribune statistic concerning the county's failure to reach a league semi-final since 1996 is now smoke.

(You'll remember what happened in September of that year, of course.

Clearly the championship is over bar the shouting. Lump on Wexford now, people! ) Having got all that out of the way, we come to the obvious concern surrounding their prospects of producing a second good display in succession. Stephen Nolan. Or, to be precise, the likelihood of Stephen Nolan doing to Kilkenny what he did to Galway. Here at last was a Wexford forward with the heft to show for and win puckouts, the aggression to take on his man and draw frees, the gumption to go for his shooting chances and the accuracy to nail them. Nolan was accorded a standing ovation when substituted near the end. He deserved two. The intelligent off-the-ball running of the half-forwards similarly merited applause.

A smaller worry is the very fact that the Wexford defenders can hurl as well as defend, the former perhaps to a fault. One wonders if there's enough of the dog in them to make the going really uncomfortable for the Kilkenny forwards.

That the holders are two victories away from a National League threein-a-row and a fifth title in six seasons is for the moment less relevant than the reality that Richie Power has been playing himself nicely into the reckoning and that Jackie Tyrrell enjoyed his best-ever afternoon in the jersey a fortnight ago, along with the expectation of an improved performance today from Martin Comerford (right), unusually subdued against Galway but still the man who turns the key in Kilkenny's engine in absentia Sheffiin.

The performance is the priority for Wexford here, the result an afterthought. Sleepers not quite awake enough.

KILKENNY TBA