TOM HUMPHRIESvisited the dressingrooms after Tipperary's win to meet the mourners from Kilkenny and the delirious denizens of the Premier camp

THE DANK precinct where the Croke Park dressingrooms are located is linked to the playing area by means of a caged tunnel, 10 yards in length and valved at either end by a gate manned by the celebrated Maors whose vigorous stewarding this summer has kept us all agog.

At almost 5.20 yesterday big Christy Heffernan was stuck in the access tunnel to the dressingrooms, his drained face pressed against the bars of the gate, the eager faces of about half a county’s worth of hangers-on beaming behind him. Over his shoulder Cormac Bonnar was having his pate shined by congratulatory hands.

Winners and losers deserved better than the frightening scrum they had to endure before reaching the stingy changing areas.

As usual the dressingrooms represented the two poles of emotion. Kilkenny manager Ollie Walsh, a steely man wrapped in affable cotton wool, crossed the border, paused briefly at the threshold to get his tact together and strolled into the delirium of the Tipperary celebration.

“We had a right rattle out there this afternoon. We came up here today and we were told by people there was no point in us making the trip even. We didn’t win today but we gave it our best, we gave you a good game. You are good, worthy champions and we congratulate you. We say to you though that we will be back and we will have our revenge, we will have our day as well. Thank you.”

With that he was gone and the respectful order of silence dissolved again. Tipperary manager Babs Keating was bubbling. “It was a good one for us to win. Declan Carr, Bob Ryan, Cormac Bonnar and Nicky haven’t trained properly for a month or so. That isn’t the kind of preparation you want for an All-Ireland final. Those lads were lucky to get out there. We had no choice really but to go with them. I said earlier in the year that with a full team right the way through we would win the All-Ireland. We had our problems but, full credit to the lads, they stuck at it.

“For long times today we were genuinely worried. Going into a game like that with some players not properly prepared was worrying, particularly against a good hurling county like Kilkenny. We came out in the end with the win and this team deserves that after the year they have had. They managed the scores at the right time and the goal, I suppose, gave us a good lift.”

Ah yes, the goal. A prominent signpost for the game’s turning point. A moment of tragedy, comedy and good fortune at once.

Michael Cleary, the hapless author of the score, sat in the corner pondering it all. Hour upon hour practising every type of free from every type of angle in fields around his home in Nenagh, on pitches in Thurles and Templemore. All those hours. And the free that swung the All-Ireland?

“It was a complete mishit. A mishit free. As so often happens they are the ones that deceive people. I didn’t hit it right and it came off a hurl and into the net. I suppose it saved us. Apart from the five minutes or so before half-time when we pulled back three points we never got going properly. Nicky was inhibited the whole day long and Cormac was there as much as a figurehead as anything else. Our defence was the key for us. We probably played our poorest game of the season today, I certainly wasn’t pleased with my own performance but we won. We have played better games and lost so I’ll settle for this.”

In the Kilkenny dressingroom, the width of a corridor away, despair was leaking.

“I thought the referee was a disgrace,” said Walsh. “Not the best,” said DJ Carey. “Hard to understand some of his decisions,” said Christy Heffernan. “Every time Fox was touched he got a free,” said Michael Walsh.

Ollie Walsh was the most expansive.

“A disgrace. I know I’m going to be suspended for saying that but I have to say it. I thought he was an absolute disgrace. I think when he goes home tonight and sits down he will realise that himself. His overall handling was bad. You could pick three or four specific incidents but we got no 50-50 break in the whole match. Not one.”

It was Liam Walsh’s misfortune to have deflected Cleary’s free to the net.

“It didn’t take the flight I expected it to take, he mishit it. Instinctively I stuck up my hurl to block it down and it spun off it. It was one of those things. Might never happen in a lifetime or might happen in an All-Ireland final.”

As the Kilkenny dressingroom was drained of its mourners the Tipperary players were just beginning to gather their wits and their belongings.

Cormac Bonnar, whose participation had been in doubt until a midday fitness test near St Vincent’s Hospital, reflected on his coup de theatre arriving onto the field five minutes after his team-mates as the speculation reached fever pitch.

“It was embarrassing. It wasn’t deliberate,” he said trying to deflect Cleary’s accusation that he merely wanted his own cheer. “I had three straps around my calf and they snapped as I was running out onto the pitch. I was delayed getting them fixed up.

Displeased with his performance and mobility (he was carrying three pounds weight of tape on his legs, left thigh and right calf) Bonnar felt the Tipperary forwards were too hurried in their execution.

“The Kilkenny defence is the best in the country for getting a hurl or a boot to the ball. Once they get the ball away from you the chance is lost. Myself and Nicky weren’t up to full speed this afternoon and it showed.

“I was like a walking mummy out there. I saw very little ball all afternoon. I am glad to have got out there and played and glad to be taking home a medal.”