IS there any other day like it any other title page that suggests such ripping yarns to follow, any other fixture that bulges with so much promise?

Clare beat Tipperary in a Munster final for the first time yesterday. Both teams lived to fight another day. The history of this great game was embellished once more.

In the end there was just three points or the puc of a ball between the sides, yet Clare's superiority had entitled them to a more emphatic margin. If there was regret, though, it drowned in relief. Drowned in song, too, as Clare's delirious support poured onto the Pairc Ui Chaoimh turf.

Munster titles are still too rare a commodity for Clare folk to sniff at.

There had been fears that tampering with the ancient format whereby the loser walks the plank might diminish the lustre of the Munster hurling final. Not a bit of it.

"This was about respect," said Ger Loughnane in a delirious Clare dressing-room. Respect.

Loughnane had broken down the chemistry of the afternoon in one word.

Munster hurling finals provide their own context, bring their own inalienable set of motivations. These occasions don't need to be decorated by the helium-filled balloons of hype, need no tending to by spin doctors. Respect, said Ger Loughnane.

Respect it was.

A visit to the Tipperary dressing-room confirmed the impression that this was for keeps. Silence in which you could hear a pin fall. Defeat in a Munster final has a shocking finality regardless of formats, or back doors or second chances.

"Second chances don't mean a thing when you lose a game like that," muttered Len Gaynor before he went back to staring at his boots.

Clare had wound themselves up all week by sifting through the ballast of history. The teams of successive generations had been filleted by Tipperary sides on their way to better places.

"This was for all the teams that went before," said Loughnane. "This means a lot in Clare, an awful lot to hurling people in Clare."

Wherever they found the motivation, it pumped the adrenalin early on. The teams exchanged points for the first five minutes before Clare shifted into their stride and pulled away.

Their muscularity and single-mindedness led to them colonising the middle third of the pitch within minutes. Fergus Tuohy ran Colm Bonner ragged. Bonner's companions in the half back line stood off like men in fear of catching something contagious.

For a glorious purple period late in the first hall, Clare were simply enjoying themselves, stretching their shoulders and scoring points from ever more unlikely distances. Sean McMahon, Colin Lynch and Sean McMahon again had three points all from outside 80 yards in the space of three minutes. The bodhran beat like a heartbeat.

Tipperary had a dip in the smelling salts at half-time and came out with clear heads after the break. They wiped out Clare's five-point, half-time lead in the space of six minutes and the game teetered on a knife edge briefly before Clare reasserted themselves.

In the end Tipperary had strong claims for a penalty and John Leahy swiped vainly at a passing ground ball. They lost.

Tipp now await the outcome of the draw for the quarter-final of the All- Ireland series. Clare rest for the briefest period on their laurels.

"A Munster final is a Munster final," said Ger Loughane.