The Galway hurlers haven't been flavour of the month at any stage in 2023 but they are still standing despite it all.
Most of the floating punters in Galway had assumed that their footballers were a better bet in 2023 and that the hurlers were stagnating by comparison.
On the whole, the campaign has done wonders for Galway hurling's integration into the Leinster hurling family.
That adulation showered on the Munster SHC and Leinster's portrayal as the dour, idiot brother has recently inspired almost as much resentment in Athenry as it would have in Tullaroan.
Throughout May, the narrative had been that the big two in Leinster would struggle to keep it pucked out against even the runt of the litter in Munster, never mind your Limericks and your Clares [and even your Tipperarys for a while].
After Galway again took down Tipperary - their third successive victory over Tipp in championship - there were gleefully sarcastic remarks to the effect that it was a "disgrace" that Leinster had taken two semi-final spots once again.
The westerners will never be fully Leinster, of course. Joe Canning is on record saying that his three Leinster medals didn't mean much to him and we're informed that Brian Cody was especially offended at the notion of a Galway captain lifting the Bob O'Keefe Cup.
So while the Tribesmen were always said to regard their provincial home since 2009 as a means to an end, they were visibly devastated at the manner of their Leinster final loss this year.
Despite topping the Leinster round-robin for the third time in four attempts, Galway weren't showered with glowing reviews
The exquisite cruelty of that defeat would cause anyone's knees to buckle. And the majority of the Galway defence slumped to the ground after Cillian Buckley's shot skittered into the corner. Referee Sean Stack even looked slightly apologetic at blowing the full-time whistle in the circumstances, though time had clearly elapsed.
The immediate impulse was to curse Padraic Mannion's rashness in booting the ball into Buckley's paw, though on closer inspection his options were limited. The hurl was gone and Kilkenny players were converging. Lamping the ball as far as he could was a logical enough choice; how often would it fly where it did?
Most pundits gave Tipp the nod for the quarter-final. Some were probably hankering after a bit of variety at the semi-final stage rather than a re-run of last year. Perhaps keen to get a re-match between Tipp and Limerick.
Despite topping the Leinster round-robin for the third time in four attempts, Galway weren't showered with glowing reviews. In particular, there was a storm of criticism after their chaotic draw against Dublin, with few inclined to dwell on their second-half comeback.
Galway's critics sighed that not even King Henry, with his Kilkenny brand moral fibre and stolidity, could override their inherent flakiness. Galway were now more Galway than ever. No longer were there wild swings in performance merely from game to game but now within games themselves.
After the quarter-final, the post-mortem centred around Tipperary's insipid display, their questionable use of possession, their problems playing against a crowded defence, and whether Liam Cahill has an issue with his teams fizzling out come the business end.
Even in victory, Galway were initially chastised for not winning by more, their wastefulness in front of goal keeping a woefully off-key Tipperary side in the contest. When the dust settled, Shefflin did receive plaudits for Galway's tactical approach, crowding the backline and turning the match into a suffocating arm-wrestle. 0-10 to 0-07 is a half-time score from 1996.
Their defence had been notably generous in the Leinster final; in Limerick they decided to apply the padlock.
Of course, the Tipp backs' fondness for putting snow on the ball played into their hands - literally in the case of Daithí Burke and Gearóid McInerney.
Time and again, the Tipperary defenders were unable to resist the primal thrill of sending the ball screaming into the clouds, down on top of their heavily outnumbered inside forwards, a few of whom were never regarded as ball winners at the best of times.
Limerick, needless to say, are unlikely to be so careless.
All-Ireland SHC quarter-final day was once a mournful occasion for Galway supporters - 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013 - but they've now won five in a row at that stage, a streak which began with the demolition of Cork in 2015, a la the famous Johnny Glynn game.
It hints at a resilience with which Galway hurlers haven't often been credited, though Jackie Tyrrell's comments about Galway being "so used to losing Leinster finals" weren't appreciated. [Having praised Galway for years, Jackie has been making strenuous efforts to return to their bad books this summer.]
Up front, they are heavily reliant on the low slung brilliance of Conor Whelan, now in the peak of his career.
They appear to have stumbled on a solution at full-forward, with Kevin Cooney, struggling to impact for large portions of the Leinster final, re-deployed there in the final 15 minutes against Kilkenny.
Galway proceeded to hang up any old ball in the direction of the isolated Cooney and Tommy Walsh, the former either winning it or breaking it, creating several scores. An eight-point deficit was transformed into a two-point lead before the bout of 'drunk hurling' in the corner. Cooney retained his place there for the Tipp match.
Cathal Mannion, deployed as a deep-lying playmaker in the Leinster final with limited success, directed operations with aplomb in the quarter-final, zinging diagonal passes into Whelan and co.
There's been much debate about the Daithi Burke and McInerney in defence. Anything that gets perennial All-Star Burke more involved in the game is, in theory, a good idea. Though after shipping four goals against Kilkenny, the clamour was to return to the old arrangement. Burke was man of the match in the Dublin comeback and the dominant figure in the final quarter comeback in Nowlan Park.
McInerney fared well enough the last day, though he was whipped off immediately after playing his part in Tipp's madcap goal, one of those slow-motion moments when half the stand tries to warn a player he's about to be hooked but it's too late.
In the afterglow of the Tipp victory, Shefflin insisted their squad was stronger and deeper than last year.
Limerick's tinge of invincibility has faded since the league final, with a score difference of +3 registered from their five games in the Munster championship and with Sean Finn and now Declan Hannon missing. Cian Lynch still apparently impeded by past injuries.
But it'd be premature to say we're in the late phase of their dominance. They remain the smartest, best-prepared boys in the class.
One senses they got a bigger kick of the latest Munster triumph, not just on account of it being a landmark fifth title in a row, but due to it being won against the head to some degree.
Tradition counts for nothing, as we know, but it would be in keeping with the grand tradition of Galway hurling to topple Limerick this weekend and then lose the All-Ireland final a fortnight later.
The run of the great three-in-a-row Cork team of the late 70s was bookended by shock All-Ireland semi-final defeats to Galway in 1975 and 1979, the first of which is usually taken as a starting point of Galway's existence as an 'elite' hurling county. They subsequently lost both All-Ireland finals to Kilkenny before making the breakthrough in 1980.
In 2001, they ambushed Kilkenny in the semi, best remembered for Kevin Broderick's 'egg and spoon race' point. This was the game which hardened Brian Cody's sensibilities and which he referenced on almost every second page of his autobiography.
The relevance of the 1970s, or the early 2000s, to Saturday's game is fairly limited.
Limerick remain clear and obvious favourites. Most logic points to them surmounting Saturday's challenge and moving on to their four-in-a-row tilt. But Galway were close to knocking them over last year.
With the All-Ireland champions carrying a few more war wounds this year, could it be enough to tip the scales in 2023?
Watch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship semi-finals, Limerick v Galway (Saturday at 6pm) and Clare v Kilkenny (Sunday at 4pm) this weekend on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport or listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1
