MATCH REPORT: Kilkenny 3-30 Waterford 1-13: MAKING HISTORY isn't always riveting business but in the eye of the hurricane that blew apart Waterford's challenge there was no escaping the devastating quality of GAA All-Ireland hurling champions Kilkenny.

The statistics drum roll is usually a matter for record books but they illustrate the modern reality. Yesterday was the county's first three-in-a-row since 1913 and the first won entirely on the field of play and victory pushed Kilkenny to the top of the All-Ireland roll of honour.

Neither was there anyone in Croke Park who believed this would be the end of the record-shattering. Next up will be Cork's four-in-a-row achievement from the 1940s and after that the target of becoming the first team in GAA history to win five successive All-Ireland titles.

Four players, Michael Kavanagh, Noel Hickey, Eddie Brennan and Henry Shefflin now have six All-Ireland medals, just two short of the record held by John Doyle and Christy Ring. Everything is now possible.

One of the more sobering reflections is that whereas Waterford came into this final as underdogs they were also by consensus considered to be the one team equipped to capitalise if the champions were to have an off-day. But the inescapable reality is there's no team out there at present who would have got near Kilkenny.

Competitive sport is an unsentimental business. A Waterford side that has given the hurling public so many great days in a way didn't deserve to be so exposed on their belated arrival on the game's biggest stage but when any team comes up against the best there's always the chance that the comparison won't flatter.

A year previously Limerick had rallied after a disastrous start in the final and lost relatively respectably. Yesterday there would be no relenting. For the first time 30 points were scored in a senior All-Ireland final.

By the 10th minute the match was slipping away from Waterford and Kilkenny simply piled on the pressure and the margin grew and grew, past the point where the challengers would have to do something to keep in touch and beyond the stage where the match was slipping away and minute by minute to where Cork's record 27-point winning margin, in 1928 and '43, shimmered spectrally into view.

It didn't get that far - just about - but this was the most comprehensive All-Ireland win of modern times, outstripping the sundry ravaging Kerry footballers have handed out over the past couple of decades.

It's hard to know where to start in terms of portraying Kilkenny's mastery. Waterford started tentatively, although before the throw-in Séamus Prendergast and his marker, Tommy Walsh, could have been in trouble for their uninhibited exchanges.

No action was taken and it was about the last semblance of real combat the final offered.

The essence of Kilkenny's success this decade under Brian Cody's management is that in a landscape where they haven't always had opposition commensurate with their abilities they have set and risen to their own standards.

It may be clichéd to talk about the hardness of the practice matches in Nowlan Park but like all clichés it has to contain a kernel of truth.

Without answering to those standards how else could a team that had effectively won an All-Ireland by half-time keep going, maintain their focus and discipline as if the match was on the line?

For instance, Eoin Kelly registered a goal for Waterford in the 69th minute - a harmless shot that exposed replacement goalkeeper James McGarry's lack of match practice.

Yet in the minute or so that followed, Kilkenny rattled off three points to claw back Kelly's score. No quarter asked or given.

At one stage with a couple of minutes left on the clock, John Mullane - the only player apart from Kelly to score for Waterford - got onto a ball and found himself surrounded by five opponents as eager as if they were protecting a one-point lead.

The winners shot just two wides during the whole match - the first, by Martin Comerford, in injury-time at the end of the first half. By contrast, Waterford waited until the 46th minute to register their first point from play. That means the other six Kilkenny forwards - TJ Reid helped himself to four points after coming in as a replacement - scored 3-25 and hit no wides.

Captain James Fitzpatrick hit the other wide in the second half but he and his partner Derek Lyng hit as many points from play as Waterford managed in total as well as controlling centrefield.

Difficulties started for Waterford in the forwards. They couldn't exert the sort of pressure necessary to get Kilkenny onto the back foot. The hitherto malfunctioning half-forward line was unable to sort itself out for the last day of the season.

Stephen Molumphy did raise his game but he was the only Waterford forward to do so, even though Mullane tried until the end and ended with what in other circumstances would have been a respectable three points.

Despite trying to play Dan Shanahan into the game as a target for puck-outs, Waterford watched JJ Delaney clean up under the intended barrage. Shanahan was moved to full forward but apart from a tenuous penalty claim, predictably made no more of an impact there on Noel Hickey.

On the other wing, Tommy Walsh was also exceptional, conceding nothing and swooping back as auxiliary cover - most striking when Mullane looked to have got the run on Hickey at the end of the first half.

Not alone were the scores not coming, apart from a few frees from Kelly, who did his best throughout, but the platform was established from which Kilkenny would destroy their challengers.

Henry Shefflin commanded the attack and although Waterford tried to cover by dropping the whole-hearted Michael Walsh back, the defence was run ragged by the pace and combination play of the Kilkenny strike forwards. Here as well the physical pressure was intense: Eoin Murphy took too long to control the sliotar and ended up bounced over the end-line for a 65 which Shefflin converted.

Eddie Brennan top scored with 2-4 - the first goal after being placed by the inrushing Eoin Larkin and the second within a minute when reacting quickly to a good save from Aidan Fogarty by Hennessy, which rebounded invitingly.

At 2-10 to 0-4 it was as if the whole occasion deflated before the eyes of the capacity attendance. The huge Waterford contingent was silenced: watching a team attain greatness isn't that engrossing if you're on the receiving end.

What was remarkable about the second half was the sustained ferocity of Kilkenny.

Waterford tried a few changes: Kelly and Eoin McGrath to centrefield, Ken McGrath to the other 40 but it was all academic by then.

The scoring surge never abated. Reid came in and scored four fine points from play and in the 47th minute Larkin broke clear of the cover, as he had in the semi-final against Cork, and the result was the same as he finished with conviction. By the end it was a procession and one that won't necessarily end with yesterday's final whistle.

• This year's GOAL challenge between Kilkenny and Kilkenny champions Ballyhale Shamrocks will take place in Nowlan Park on Wednesday at 6pm. Proceeds will benefit GOAL's relief operations in Ethiopia.