Elaborating on the culinary theme, it's hard to decide which of the diners will sit down with a heartier appetite. Provincial hostilities having ceased three weeks ago, one obvious danger for Limerick involves the possibility of jaded palates.

Another may centre on the degree of expectation they've placed on themselves; bizarrely for a team that entered the campaign with only one objective, that of winning a first match in Munster for six years, failure to be hurling into August will render the summer of 2007 as ultimately unsatisfactory for them as it was undeniably crazy, mostly strange and sometimes wonderful, usually all at once.

Clare? No such pressure or misgivings. Their get-out cards have long been enumerated and form a shelter should they choose to seek refuge. Tony Considine lost or mislaid a legendary goalkeeper, a full-back hewn from granite, a centre-back carved from bronze, one forward who hit four points from play in the 2005 All Ireland semifinal and another forward who hit four points from play in the 2006 equivalent. If Clare win today, they'll have overachieved this season. If they lose, there'll be questions raised about Considine's management style but scarcely much argument about the county's championship bottom line in '07. To deem Clare one of the best four teams in the country is charitableness of a high order.

That Waterford's winning margin on 8 July did Limerick an injustice is both accurate and irrelevant. The same goes for the contention that the underdogs should have been two goals up inside three minutes; this year's Waterford model wouldn't have been spooked by such an incline, especially not with 67 minutes in which to climb it. The Munster final was not a match that Limerick, middleweights taking on heavyweights, left behind them; think back on the 2001 All Ireland quarter-final with Wexford if you feel inclined to dispute the contention.

Where today finds them in terms of health and, more importantly, freshness, is anyone's guess. Limerick's pointscoring rate declined from 19 in the first two games against Tipp through 15 in the third to 14 against Waterford. Their post-provincial rest period can only have arrived at an opportune juncture for the promotion of battery-renewal. But have Limerick already given the best of themselves, are becalmed and now taking on a team with a fresh breeze in their sails? It is not an unreasonable contention.

Although clutching for the life-raft of logic is not necessarily a wise course of action amid the stormy seas of a local derby, a more attractive course of action fails to present itself. Such pragmatism as we dare muster suggests that, most other things being equal, the two Morans, Mike Fitzgerald and Andrew O'Shaughnessy carry a greater aggregate potential scoring payload than any four Clare forwards can muster.

And, er, that's about it, really.

A conclusive argument for opting for Richie Bennis's side? Not remotely. Not even a persuasive one. But in the circumstances, it'll have to suffice.

Verdict Limerick ALL IRELAND SHC QUARTER-FINAL CLARE v LIMERICK Croke Park, 2.0 Referee M Wadding (Waterford) Live, RTE 2 CLARE (Probable): P Brennan; G O'Brady, F Lohan (c), K Dilleen; A Markham, B Bugler, B O'Connell; J Clancy, J McInerney; D O'Rourke, D Mcmahon, D Quinn; D O Connell, B Nugent, N Gilligan LIMERICK B Murray; D Reale (c), S Lucey, S Hickey; P Lawlor, B Geary, M Foley; D O'Grady, M O'Brien; M Fitzgerald, O Moran, N Moran; A O'Shaughnessy, B Begley, K Tobin