Pandemonium in the narrow corridors beneath Pairc Ui Chaoimh as Waterford come to terms with a minor revolution. There is much whooping and flag-waving.
The Tipperary door is shut. Brendan Landers makes his way down from the pitch, a single arm raised in defiant triumph. "We've waited for this," someone shouts from the mayhem, as the goalkeeper is embraced by friends.
Inside, team manager Gerald McCarthy fights off hoarseness and talks facts. "I think our fitness told. These lads have trained really hard all year. We were able to ease off towards the approach for this game."
He shrugs: "This has to be good for Waterford hurling," he says as Tony Browne nods with a grin. "You know, we have taken a lot of hidings from Tipp over the years but today we stuck with it and put them away. This really is a significant victory from that point of view.
"It's a young team but there is great self-belief there. Even when they got the goal in the second half, we just kept playing," he says, measured in his assessment.
The conviction that summer is young for this team echoes throughout the dressing-room. Stephen Frampton attempts to impose some restraint on the emotions. "We will take this as another game. Certainly, we will enjoy it, it's not often that Waterford gets to a Munster final but now that we are there, we will have a belief that we can win it."
At half-time, he stood in the same dressing-room and sensed that a team statement was impending. "Because we had done quite well in the first half, despite the score," he explains. "We were against a fair old breeze and we had given away a bit of a soft goal. "I don't know what exactly made us step it up so much at the start of the second half. I suppose it was just a real will to win. Comes down to self-belief. Waterford might have lacked that in previous years. But we showed it before in the league semi-final so it was no real surprise to see the same here again today."
"The pressure is off now," reckons Billy O'Sullivan. "Probably not all that many people fancied us to be in a Munster final. Whoever comes through on the other side will be expected to put us away," he smiles, slinging a bag over his shoulder and bracing himself for the onslaught of well-wishers on the other side of the door.
Tipperary depart quietly, a sombre cluster of supporters in blue and gold offering nods and whispers of condolences to players and friends as they file out. Inside, Colm Bonnar folds away his belongings and fires out his own take on the game.
"What did they get, eight or nine without reply in the second half? I don't know. We knew we wanted a lead going in at half-time and five points is a decent margin. We didn't expect them to come at us so quickly."
A raw mark creases along swollen knuckles. He makes light of it. "The hand was fine. It was a tough old game. I thought Brian and Conor Gleeson did really well when they came on. But they just seemed to get all the vital scores. I suppose Waterford were crying out for a win like this, really."
He pauses for a moment as he weighs up the possibility of a new light for Munster hurling. "They are capable," he agrees. "Cork may well come through as well and they will have learned from Cork in the league final. They showed today they have the belief," he says, briefly shaking his head as though considering the merits of a Munster championship with an effervescent Waterford challenge. Paul Shelley recovers nonchalantly, his shock of cropped hair still wet. "That's the way the cookie crumbles," he surmises with a sigh. "They really upped the tempo in the second half. We were under fierce pressure with that wind."
He permits himself another brief sigh. A quiet summer beckons. Hands reach out to John Leahy as he shuffles out of the dressing-room. He accepts their good wishes with a half-smile but downcast eyes invite no conversation. He shuffles off through the gloomy corridor, turning away from the shrill and familiar screams of victory.
