The occasion? No, not Semple Stadium last month, but the All Ireland semi-final last August. The final score? Cork 1-16 Waterford 1-15. The reason for the elaborate dissertation on the endgame? Because the result was wrong but Waterford never stopped doing the right thing.

Because they died but they didn't commit suicide. Because they stayed afloat by taking their points when going baldheaded for goals could have sunk them. Because defeat, and the manner of it, at Croke Park nine months ago helped shape victory, and the manner of it, in Thurles two weeks ago. At the time the loss to Cork appeared like a full stop; from this vantage point it has more of a resemblance to a semi-colon. And be sure of one thing: the winning of the National League will not . . . repeat, not . . . be the losing of the All Ireland.

Yet regardless of the blast of fresh air the sight of a McCarthy Cup beribboned in white and blue next September would propel through hurling's house, don't fall for the tired conceit that another title for Cork or Kilkenny would spell the end of civilisation.

One sees it in internet chatrooms, some new bright spark materialising every few months to propose that hurling is either dead, dying or wheezing away in the ER like a grampus on a rickety life-support machine. Yawn.

As if the 1960s and '70s, which gave us Tipp winning four All Irelands in five, Kilkenny three in four and Cork three in three, were some rosy-sheened Shangri La. As if we haven't seen enough from TG4's All Ireland Gold to realise that old hurling . . . as opposed to old hurlers . . . was not worthy of the degree of veneration we'd been brought up to confer reflexively on it. Fact is, we're living in the era of the fastest hurling that's ever been seen, which may or may not be an unmixed blessing, and the most precise hurling, which is.

Older readers can, of course, feel free to disagree in the strongest of terms and to mourn anew the death of overhead striking. They might also inform us of what actually became of that sliotar after it was doubled on in midair.

The truth is that hurling has literally never been more popular than it is at present. Croke Park reports a four-fold increase in the demand for hurleys and helmets. The numbers playing the game have doubled over the past 10 years. Where in 1996 there were 4,809 youth teams in the land, last year there were 5,263 . . . at a juncture, moreover, where affiliation fees are much higher due to insurance purposes. The Go Games concept, with its pioneering use of soft sliotars, is introducing young people from non-traditional hurling areas to the sport in a child-friendly, noncompetitive way. Though very few of them will grow up to be cowboys, at least they're getting the chance to do so.

Every year on this day we look for threads of silver among the clouds. Every year we find them.

Tommy Naughton's Dublin were a nasty midweek trip to Belfast away from a place in the knockout stages of the league. Laois won Division 2 with a young team. Wicklow reached the final. De La Salle captured the All Ireland colleges' title after picking up their first Harty Cup along the way. Carlow continue to grow their own minors. Their Wexford coevals are being mentored by Tom Dempsey, Liam Dunne and Billy Byrne. Not quite a chicken in every pot, but nourishment all the same.

Talking of sustenance, Championship 2007 may offer less in the way of it for Cork and Kilkenny than usual. The former look stuck between stations, in the process of taking one step back before taking two forward. It won't be a surprise if Cork win the All Ireland, but it'll be even less of a surprise if they don't.

The 0-20 they shipped against Waterford a fortnight ago, meanwhile, was the biggest number of points Kilkenny have conceded in a game of import since the 1985 Leinster semi-final replay. Unlike in 2001, however, they won't somnambulate into the All Ireland series.

Tipperary didn't do enough during the league to be marked down as potential champions. Plausible explanations attended their defeats to Limerick, Galway and Waterford, although the Tribune reckons that the quarterfinal was a false affair that allowed the losers, for whom Danny O'Hanlon looks a speedier and more direct version of Micheal Webster, go home with a healthier view of themselves than they were entitled to. They're likelier All Ireland champions in 2009 than 2007.

Elsewhere, Clare's appearance in last year's All Ireland semi-final surely represented the final squeezing of the orange, while Limerick have one big performance in them but lack the resources for a sequence of them. Galway for their part are simply unknowable, because of the Ger Loughnane factor . . . and the contingent conspiracy theories . . . rather than despite it.

Galway lose to Kilkenny? Ah, yer man ran the shite out of them for three hours the day before. Galway lose to Wexford? Ah, he didn't want them to play Kilkenny again and risk having their confidence damaged. At this rate of going, it's amazing nobody has linked Loughnane to JFK's assassination. Has the great man a cunning masterplan? Or is he making it up as he goes along? Can't wait to see.

Some wishes. May Andrew O'Shaughnessy recover his form of league opening day in Nenagh. May Wexford be carried out on their shields instead of on their easychairs. May Dublin reach the All Ireland quarter-finals.

May Offaly bring a smile to the face of John McIntyre, that martyr for unfashionable causes. May somebody in authority make a coherent case for bringing the All Ireland final forward to late August. Above all, may Waterford be in Croke Park on 2 September.

They ought to be. They are extremely . . .

Lady Bracknell might say almost ostentatiously . . . eligible. Let us count the ways.

They have a goalie whose demeanour under incoming balls does not make you want to ring the bomb squad. They have a tiger cub of a defender in Aidan Kearney. They have an orchestrator/conductor at centre-back. They have in Michael Walsh and Seamus Prendergast a west Waterford duo who bring the kind of country-lad cuttin' required by every team with a quantity of city players. They're formidable in the air. The body language of the players has improved (these days the emotional rococo comes from the manager). During the league they twice beat Cork, who may not bust a gut to win the competition but in recent years haven't actively tried to lose it, and beat Kilkenny, who don't make a habit of getting caught by opponents coming from behind.

They're motivated by the same hunger that a team never possesses but once, when they're chasing a long-lost crown. Yes, the lack of goals is a concern, but if we praise Waterford for taking their points in defeat against Cork last August, we cannot criticise them for taking points in victory over Kilkenny last month.

And if, propelled on a raging tide of hype and national goodwill they should fetch up in Croke Park in four months, there to meet a Kilkenny nobody's paying much attention to . . . well, in that scenario the preceding paragraph becomes redundant and all bets are the equivalent of ante-post dockets bearing the name Teofilo.

But we'll cross Rice Bridge when we come to it.