Guinness yesterday announced details of their sponsorship of the 1998 All-Ireland hurling championships which will take the company's investment to £6 million since the sponsorship began in 1995.

Shaun Holliday, the managing director of the Guinness Ireland group, said at the launch in Dublin Castle that the greater part of this year's investment of over 1,000,000 £1 million would be dedicated to the promotional area.

The centrepiece of this campaign will be a new television advertisement, shown for the first time yesterday. This and the new billboard campaign replaces the very successful inaugural advertising which ran for the last three years.

Holliday said: "From the outset, the GAA made it clear that our joint marketing of the game was to be a vital aspect of the sponsorship.

"While we have received many compliments for the part we have played in that marketing, I would very much like to compliment the GAA on their own marketing initiatives, such as the introduction of the All-Ireland quarter-finals in 1997 which proved such a success."

He also noted the importance of television in the promotion of sport: "It is again indicative of the present state of hurling that despite the fact that there are now more matches shown live on television than ever before, attendances have soared to record levels."

It was also announced that Guinness will be extending its hurling scholarships' scheme to cover University College Galway as well as the institutions within the existing scheme, UCC, UCD and UL. Each scholarship is worth 3,000 £3,000 per annum for a three-year period.

This extension earned the approval of GAA president Joe McDonagh whose alma mater is UCG where, according to him, "my involvement in the affairs of the association had such an impact on me".

He paid tribute to what Holliday had earlier referred to as "the union between Guinness and hurling".

"Both Guinness and hurling," said the president, "have been part of Irish society for generations. Internationally both represent elements that are uniquely Irish and both are threads in the tapestry of Irishness that Irish people are justifiably proud of.

"Today strengthens these threads and the commitment and vision that sustained both and today heralds further exciting new horizons for hurling."

At the launch Ger Loughnane, the manager of All-Ireland hurling champions Clare, tipped Cork to win the weekend's big hurling match, the National League final in Thurles between the side that beat Clare by 11 points in the semi-final and Waterford.

"You would have to fancy Cork," he said, "because of their strength, their skill and their record in big finals. Having said that though, every neutral will hope that Waterford will win. They're the next team really, after Clare, Galway and Offaly, that you'd expect to see make the breakthrough.

"Whether they make the breakthrough on Sunday is not that hugely important but Waterford will be a huge force in the championship."

In the aftermath of the league semi-final, despite Loughnane's expressions of concern, there was a certain scepticism about the nature of Clare's performance. Cork politely ventured that the All-Ireland champions mightn't have been as hungry as them.

Loughnane, however, remains adamant. "Everyone said we'd something up our sleeve or that we'd held back, but we didn't hold back in any way. We thought we had done everything right but the performance was the worst since we started as a team in 1994, '95. But come June 21st (Clare's opening championship match with either Cork or Limerick), I know we'll be desperately hard to beat. That's the day that's going to decide our year."

Among the explanations for Clare's poor performance and the flatness of the individual displays was a reportedly severe training session on the morning of the league semi-final. Again Loughnane denies the suggestion.

"I saw a report that we had trained for two hours in Templemore. We went down to Templemore and trained for half an hour, not really training but we loosened out as we do before every game. We keep the same routine before every game and that's all we did."