All-Ireland SHC quarter-final: Frequently over the years, Galway races week coincided with the lead-up to the Galway hurlers' first big championship match. Hurling talk was a familiar buzz around Ballybrit. Not this year it appears, as gloom has replaced the animation of old.

This isn't any surprise to those watching the pitiful levels of support that Galway attract to their matches and it's in keeping with the despondent mood that pervades the county.

The four years since these counties contested an All-Ireland final have been terms of trial for both and the bleak truth is that tomorrow's quarter-final is virtually irrelevant to the destination of this year's title.

Galway have slid back from the vestigial promise of last year's National League win and are rattling along amidst player departures and rumours of discord although they have the only unbeaten record in the championship outside of Cork and Kilkenny.

Tipperary, on the other hand, came into the championship on as low-key a note as the county have ever done in recent times but have perked up throughout the course of a bracing Munster campaign without ever suggesting they'll be a threat come September - or even mid-August.

Still you have to favour the team who have come through the harder tasks and improved as they went. The Munster final display might well have been thoroughly qualified by Cork's apparent indifference after the break by which time they led by a mile but it succeeded in doing two things.

Firstly it provided some interesting pointers about how to attack Cork's half backs, and secondly it confirmed a trend of, if not dazzling tactical acumen, at least resourcefulness on the Tipp line. Ken Hogan and his selectors haven't always got their starting line-ups right and have needed smart recovery calls to salvage the situation.

Delaying selection until tomorrow because of injury problems means the first 15 won't be subject to quite the same scrutiny but chances are management will be called on to make more running repairs to a team who - even if Eamonn Corcoran's switch to centre back looks the final piece in the defensive jigsaw - obstinately refuse to take a settled shape up front.

Galway's team are too open to question for comfort. Eugene Cloonan has been in exile because of a back injury or because Conor Hayes and his management have decided they don't want him; you'll hear both versions in the county. Ger Farragher is an excellent dead-ball specialist but he has yet to show Cloonan's predatory instincts when the ball is in play. It's significant Galway will be without half of the attack that stunned Kilkenny in 2001.

Mark Kerins, whose ball winning at centre forward made such an impact on the two Kennedys, Eamon and David, four years ago, has fallen out of favour without anyone coming in to take over that vital function. Kevin Broderick is recovering from surgery and won't be able to play this weekend.

Among those to have walked away from the panel are Diarmuid Cloonan, Eugene's brother, and Fergal Moore. The former is a natural full back whose physique and aptitude will be missed against Micheál Webster whose size has made life awkward for Brian Lohan and Diarmuid O'Sullivan and can be relied on to do at least the same for Shane Kavanagh.

Ollie Canning is back in the corner to try to extend his fine record on Eoin Kelly but Tipp's big gun may well be wheeled out to the 40 and Canning is hardly going to follow.

The biggest threat to Tipperary is their lack of pace. Lar Corbett's injury removes a player who has a strangely more impressive record against Galway than he does against other counties.

But they have a head start in digging in and scrapping it out in championship matches and have improvised well in adversity. Those credentials are better than Galway's.

Meanwhile, the GAA have confirmed that tickets for tomorrow's double bill are on sale from the ticket office in Croke Park from 11.00 until 5.30 this evening.

GALWAY: L Donoghue; D Joyce, S Kavanagh, O Canning; D Hardiman, T Óg Regan, D Collins; F Healy, D Tierney; A Kerins, D Forde, N Healy; G Farragher, R Murray, D Hayes.

TIPPERARY: To be announced.

Referee: A MacSuibhne (Dublin).