So the Munster Hurling Championship is ablaze and suddenly summer has a dancing narrative to it. Clare shook off their decrepitude in fine style yesterday and in doing so undermined just about everything Tipp thought they knew

It was classic ambush. All winter, as the glory of Tipp hurling dominated our conversations, men sweated and seethed in the long grass at Crusheen. Through the dank days of league action they listened as we took our bearings. The country behind had Clare hurling in it. The landscape ahead was dominated by Tipp and Kilkenny. Clare listened and plotted. Yesterday they came to the crumbling bowl by the Lee and scuttled every certainty.

Their forwards scored freely, spreading the workload as they have seldom done before. At midfield they thundered. In defence they looked like the old Clare, casting webs of defenders over every Tipp player who hesitated. And all through the game they squeezed Tipp. Seldom, even at this level, have a team gained so much by the sheer excellence of their application to the basics of hooking and blocking. Tipperary weren't permitted to hurl.

From early on the signs were there. Within seconds of the throw-in, Alan Markham, back working the defence beat, won a free. Clenched fists. Roars of encouragement. Ninety seconds later young Tony Griffin burst through the Tipp defence with the ball tacked to his hurl. Another free. Jamesie O'Connor pointed. Clare were away.

Thereafter they took the air and drew confidence from it. Nothing derailed them. They lost David Hoey to injury after six minutes. Brian Lohan was struggling with his knee. Their third point confirmed the trend: Jamesie O'Connor broke his hurl in a challenge, bent and lifted the ball with the splintery stump he was left with and hit a pass again with the butt of the hurl to Diarmuid McMahon. Over it flew.

Everything was in working order Clarewise. O'Connor, playing his best game since 1999, scored only his second championship goal on 15 minutes. He was aided and abetted by young Andrew Quinn. Five minutes later Quinn himself skeetered a low ball past Cummins into the Tipp net. Twenty minutes down and Tipp were trailing by nine. Worse, they looked paralysed on the field and on the bench.

So it continued. Thomas Dunne was horsed into the margins of this game. The Tipp defence looked nervy every time Clare came at them. Eoin Kelly showed a rare chink of fallibility. His brother Paul floundered for much of the time. Supply was choked.

"Well were ye impressed," asked Cyril Lyons quietly after it finished and the media gathered around him. "Ye were the lads who wrote us off. " It was almost as if the sound of scribblers dismissing a side's chances wasn't music to a mentor's ear.

The win came at a cost. Sean McMahon, the talismanic Clare captain, was sent off in the second half following an exchange which occurred on the edge of more widespread disorder. He will miss a month and more if cited for striking Conor Gleason with the hurl. The extent of that loss will begin seeping in today.

Tipperary lost John Carroll through a second yellow during the same outbreak of shemmozzling. His loss will be more manageable but highlights Tipperary's problems. Carroll never gave Brian Lohan the sort of strenuous run around which might have tested him, and, having pointedly ignored the claims of both Eugene O'Neill and Ger O'Grady, Tipp are back to the drawing board when it comes to a full forward.

They have other difficulties too. Defence creaked not just in the places where Tipp were playing fillers but also in more reliable sectors. Paul Kelly had a poor game. Brian Horgan was substituted.

Here was a figment of hope for Clare during the past weeks as Tipperary's defence became increasingly unavailable for action, but yesterday's win was emphatic. Clare's margin of nine points was stunning, all the more so because what went into it included a couple of extraordinary saves from Brendan Cummins in the Tipp goal.

Tipp will be introspective as they head for the qualifiers. It may not be as simple as Michael Doyle suggested afterwards when he noted that Tipp were "playing catch up, just never caught up".

Did they need to sweat through the league? Did they lose more than a few defenders in their exertions? Was the Tipp bench too slow to reach for remedy yesterday? Have Clare found the formula for snuffing them?

Clare will miss Seanie MacMahon badly, and for the player himself in the year of his captaincy his first sending off can scarcely have come at a worse time. Yet a win over Tipp is a huge revitalising tonic. Their fans, a curiously fickle bunch, will come streaming back. The confidence of yesterday will not be easily dissipated.

Clare are back in action in three weeks. They will walk back into a vastly changed Munster Championship.

"Ah, all that's changed is that nobody will want to play Tipp now," said Lyons with a mischievous grin which disguised the common thought that perhaps something seismic happened yesterday. Whatever comes next, Cyril can be assured there'll be more than 20,193 there to see it.