It is fitting that the paths of Galway and Clare should cross during the last championship of the decade. The second of tomorrow's Guinness hurling championship quarter-finals (4.20) pairs neighbouring counties who have experienced a stark reversal of fortunes in the '90s.

Clare, so long the downtrodden in Munster, won hearts and titles and fast-forwarded the evolution of the modern game with a style based on magnificent, controlled fury.

Galway, who added an element of exotic mystery to the championship summer in the '80s, have been in decline since 1990 (1993 excepted). Tomorrow's match offers them one last shot at redemption while affording Clare an alternative route as they bid to re-assert their imperiousness.

When these two teams last met in March, Clare fielded without the St Joseph's Doora-Barefield contingent of Jamesie O'Connor, Sean McMahon and Ollie Baker. Galway were, as usual, wringing every ounce of worth out of the league and stung their opponents by 2-17 to 0-11.

Since that day, the enduring memory of Galway is the tame defeat to Tipperary in the National League final, while Clare went on to clinically dismantle Tipp in the Munster semi-final replay.

Galway's outing against Waterford at the same stage last year seemed to set in stone the belief that they could no longer exist in the modern game under the current provincial structure. Waterford, after a torrid provincial campaign, left them looking sluggish and lost.

Manager Mattie Murphy, back for a second term, has pondered on how best to mould the county's younger stars into a cohesive senior force and the team that takes the field tomorrow, with six personnel changes and a new midfield, bears little relation to the team defeated by Waterford.

Mind you the team is new after a fashion. The return of Joe Cooney to Galway's centrefield, at the age of 35 and after a three-year absence, is being read by some as regressive, while Joe Rabbitte comes back to the attack after a spring hiatus.

Galway will pit Cooney, still rightly revered in the county, alongside Fergus Flynn, a Clare native who made no real impact in his own county, against Ollie Baker and Colin Lynch, the most fearsome midfield pairing in the country.

Of the Clare team that defeated Galway (3-12 to 1-13) in the 1995 semi-final, eight will start tomorrow, with three other starters that day still on the panel. Only four Galway players survive from that match, with the back lines having undergone a complete change. But so elusive has a formula for success proven that the fluctuating nature of personnel is understandable.

The Clare attack looks less potent without the cut and dazzle of Jamesie O'Connor and the Galway back six have the speed and guile to break even in that department. Galway can take comfort in that Baker is only half fit, but his presence seems to unleash the best in Lynch. Flynn and Cooney will have to breathe deep and play in the eye of a hurricane. The ability of Galway's half-forward line to impose themselves on Doyle, McMahon and Daly will be central to the outcome. Rabbitte, so often the scapegoat on bad days for Galway, again has a huge role. He must dictate the pace of the attack and subdue the towering McMahon.

The common belief is that Clare, patchy against Cork, will lash back again tomorrow. The question is whether Galway can live with Clare's intensity and continue to focus on their own game. Nothing they have done in recent years suggests they can, but if Clare are due a big game, so too are Galway.

Cooney, for all his genius, is a gamble, but he at least provides a bridge to the winning years. Chances are Galway quietly fancy this game.

If they perform - and the belief here is that they will - then this could be the tie of the championship. The Clare boys are old hands at such fare by now and the likelihood is that they'll roll on with that immutable sense of purpose more firmly embedded than ever.

CLARE: D Fitzgerald; B Quinn, B Lohan, Fohan; L Doyle, S McMahon, A Daly; O Baker, C Lynch; D Forde, E Flannery, A Markham; B Murphy, C Clancy, N Gilligan.

GALWAY: D Howe; L Hodgins, B Feeney, V Maher; N Shaughnessy, C Moore, P Hardiman; J Cooney, F Flynn; O Canning, J Rabbitte, A Kerins; K Broderick, O Fahy, E Cloonan.