Gennaro Gattuso doesn't know much about hurling, but he definitely knows something about blood, sweat and tears. A day or two before the recent Champions League semi-final second-leg meeting with Manchester United at the San Siro, the AC Milan midfielder posted a message to supporters on the club website. In it Gattuso promised that Milan would show "pride, passion and experience". But that alone wouldn't be enough, he added.

"Our fans will have to give something moref In the name of my teammates, we call on the San Siro to give us that final push to Athens. Don't let us down. We can make this historic assault together. Then if, even with our desire to do something, Manchester United demonstrate they are stronger than us, we will accept the verdict sportingly. If you, fans and friends, get behind us for 90 minutes, then maybe we will make it."

They did make it. AC Milan beat Manchester United 3-0.

The San Siro was a cauldron of noise. Gattuso had a blinder. What's this go to do with hurling? Well, plenty actually when you think about it. It shows the power of positive thinking and action, doesn't it? Let's hope we get plenty of those items in the forthcoming championship.

Reading the pundits lately, however, you'd be forgiven for believing that this year's All Ireland hurling and football championships should be scrapped and the silverware handed over to Kilkenny and Kerry right now. I can see where they're coming from, given that the 2007 championships in both codes will not exactly be the most wide open there's ever been and also given that the spread of potential winners in each is extremely narrow.

Yes, everybody from beyond Leeside and Noreside will be disappointed if we have yet another showdown of Cork and Kilkenny in September. But the real question is, what will people do about it?

One step would be to take next year's National League as seriously as possible.

That's the approach Ken McGrath look where's it got them: nicely placed on the eve of the championship and unquestionably the most realistic challengers to the Cork/Kilkenny duopoly.

Let's not forget that hurling is far from the only sport in which the same teams are permanently dominant. Manchester United have just won their ninth Premiership title in 15 years . . . not even the present Kerry footballers can claim such a record . . . and next Saturday they face Chelsea, champions for the past two seasons, in the FA Cup final. Liverpool and Gattuso's AC Milan will be meeting in the Champions League final for the second time in three years. Real Madrid and Barcelona are fighting it out yet again at the top in Spain. Celtic and Rangers continue to dominate Scotland.

France won the Six Nations again while New Zealand look racing certainties for the rugby World Cup.

Are Kilkenny clearer favourites for the McCarthy Cup than the All Blacks are for the World Cup? I don't think so.

But even if they were, what of it? If every team and every supporter in the aforementioned competitions were to take a long hard look at the statistics, they'd throw in the towel here and now. They don't, though. Competing against the best, measuring oneself against the market leaders, is what sport is all about. It offers excitement and privilege. It brightens all our lives. The chance of one shining hour, irrespective of the odds, never fails to stir the human spirit. Had 37year-old George O'Connor taken heed of the probabilities and the naysayers, he'd never have been in a position to line out in his one and only All Ireland final, never mind win a Celtic cross in what proved to be his last ever match in 1996, dropping to his knees, hands clasped in prayer, at the end. The stuff of legend.

We as sports people live in hope. We know we have to. But we also know we have to be good enough, strong enough, skilful enough and hungry enough. That's the task ahead of the pretenders to Kilkenny's crown this summer.

Is this a predictable championship?

Probably. Is it as predictable as last year's? Probably not. Leinster won't yield much in the way of surprises, admittedly; Wexford to beat Tommy Naughton's improving Dublin, Offaly to beat Laois, Kilkenny to beat Offaly and then see off Wexford in the final, albeit by not as much as they did in the league.

Much of the attention down south will centre on Cork, where the return of Gerald McCarthy was, four years on from the strike, widely viewed as a move by the county board to take back the reins from the players and "their men". Strangely, the fact that they have been so successful never even entered into it. The reigning Munster titleholders have to be fancied to dispose of Clare, who have simply lost too many big names to be the same threat they were under Anthony Daly. That Waterford would then start favourites in a semi-final against Cork mightn't suit the new league kingpins, but this is the kind of tag Justin McCarthy's men must show they're capable of living with. On the other side of the draw, Tipperary have a great chance of a first provincial success since 2001. Waterford, should they reach the final, will have to keep improving in order to carry off the title.

After that we'll be into the All Ireland series, with Galway waiting in the long grass. Then, hopefully, the fun will really begin. Ger Loughnane has rarely failed to disappoint in the past. You have to expect he will deliver on that score again this time. But that isn't to say that Galway will win their first All Ireland title in, unbelievably, almost 20 years. I seriously doubt they will.

It's May now. I expect the destination of the silverware to be fought out by three teams - Tipperary, Waterford and Kilkenny . . . and I'm going for Waterford to improve an extra 10 per cent and win their first All Ireland since 1959. Their destiny is in their own hands but more importantly in their own heads. They, more than any other team, should remember the example of Gattuso.

Finally, well done to Nickey Brennan for calling on players to take off their helmets during pre-match parades. Well done too to Fr Bernie Moloney of Cashel, who's been pressing for this development for years. Hurling needs all the positive promotional moves it can get.

Seeing the players' faces close up will be another small but important step in the right direction at a time when many positive unseen steps are taking place in hurling.