A crucial year looms on the horizon for hurling. Although the history of the game has featured more dire prophecies than the Old Testament, the modern world provides a greatly changing context. For the second year, the championship was overshadowed by football. This time, however, was more of a total eclipse as the big-ball game's qualifier matches placed it centre-stage on nearly every weekend of summer.

Hurling will be trying something similar next season but there have been frequently expressed reservations about whether there are enough competitive teams to make the system as attractive as football's equivalent proved.

There are reasons not to write off the idea just yet: the limited cross-pollination of provincial championships provided by the outgoing system demonstrated the difficulty of sustaining a formline through the generally engrossing Munster championship and its lifeless counterpart in Leinster.

Yet if the qualifiers prove a success, they will undermine - even more than they did in football - the raison d'etre of the provincial championships. All of this is for the future. The past has had its moments.

To salute Tipperary requires a little more than the ritual acknowledgement of All-Ireland champions. At the outset the county was one of a pack that could legitimately harbour ambitions but by the end they had ridden out a whole host of challenges for a really hard-earned All-Ireland.

Nicky English's management team deserve plaudits for constructing a side from scratch ... - two thirds of the 1997 finalists were replaced - and also for giving everything a rattle. There were no strategic deceleration in the spring and Tipp became the first county in 14 years to win the league and championship double and the first Munster county in over 30 years.

In nearly every match the team looked to have struggled and doubts were cast over the future. But they battled on, players stepped into the breach and management provided the necessary sideline dynamic. Important players were lost to injury and suspension and some opponents provided unexpectedly stiff resistance but Tipperary, magnificently led by Tommy Dunne, persevered.

The championship would have been a wholly predictable affair but for the contributions of Limerick and Wexford. Eamonn Cregan's team ambushed Cork in the shock of the season, came from 11 behind against Waterford and frightened the life out of Tipp in the Munster final.

It was unfortunate that they were the ones who had to make way for Wexford but in the most electric match of the season, goalkeeper Damien Fitzhenry's last-minute penalty nailed the win. The Leinster runners-up were within a couple of scoreable wides of beating Tipperary but reality intruded in the replay.

There was also an intriguing sub-plot running through the season. Kilkenny romped through Leinster, averaging 12.5 point wins in their two matches. It was a fourth successive provincial title, a feat bettered by the county only once, and the average margin of victory in the three previous years was 13, 16 and 13 - statistics that have shattered the credibility of the Leinster championship. The hubbub about the team's place in history grew apace.

Galway awaited in the semi-finals. What better build-up could they have had? The county had new management. Clare's Michael McNamara knocked the players into shape while home legend John Connolly coached the hurling and manager Noel Lane quietly oversaw the process. It was like the old days. Having arrived unheralded - apart from a rout of Derry's first back-to-back Ulster winners - in the semi-finals, Galway roared out of the traps and Kilkenny's place in history took on more prosaic dimensions.

Other talking points included Jim Neary's Graigue-Ballycallan giving mighty Athenry a shock and all present at the All-Ireland club final a great spectacle before the Galwaymen took a third title in five years - an unprecedented haul. The match took place in April as foot-and-mouth disease had obliterated the early spring programme.

Finally, Ger Loughnane ended the year apparently hoping to add the Pulitzer to his many hurling achievements. Raising the Banner became a publishing phenomenon but probably ended up vindicating his more stringent critics rather than his most ardent devotees.