GAA: Like true champions, they were not to be denied. For the past month, we have seen Kilkenny absorb the best the hurling world can throw at them and yet, come September, they will be standing in wait, the supreme force of the modern game.

If a third All-Ireland title in a row is to be the manifest destiny of this brave Kilkenny team, then nobody can say they do not deserve their tilt at it.

Yesterday, under steel-grey skies, they met a Waterford team whose form has been the fragrance of this hurling summer, fresh and full of velocity and giddy with belief.

Like Clare and Galway before them, Waterford discovered what it is to be repelled by the All-Ireland champions. They lost by 3-12 to 0-18 in a match that left them with promises enough that they will grace the big stage on other August days. But they will also carry frozen images of almost-magic moments that could have been the difference between appearing in a first All-Ireland final since 1963 and yet another September of watching from the stands. A goal separated these neighbours at the finish and really, it came down to inches.

Yesterday afternoon's entertainment opened with a staggering goal from the incomparable Henry Shefflin and ended as something primal and draining, a spine-tingling battle of heart and wits.

The champions made the running for most of the game but there was always the sense that Waterford, a team that feeds on crowd adrenaline, would make a serious push for glory before the afternoon died. With five minutes to go a free from Paul Flynn - who dragged his county along behind him with 13 immense points - signalled the moment. The champions braced themselves.

Waterford's summer has revolved around a bounty of glorious goals and in the last ten minutes of yesterday's semi-final they hunted for the biggest of all. They slung ball after ball deep into the Kilkenny square and time and again the same old names ushered it clear: Peter Barry, Noel Hickey, the reborn Michael Kavanagh, JJ Delaney. Tommy Walsh, his red helmet bobbing in front of the full-back line got through an ocean of work and James Ryall was unflinching.

"I think it was a massive display of guts and character," said Brian Cody. Rarely has the ambling, cherry-cheeked manager seemed so genuinely besotted by his own team.

"Look, I don't know where this is going to end and there are no guarantees. That is what makes it such a great game. But regardless of what happens, these are a powerful group of fellas."

For a split second, their dream looked threatened. Kavanagh, excellent all day, slipped when coming to meet a high ball. It bounced into a clearing and Paul O'Brien, whose goal dispatched Tipperary in a Munster semi-final that seems years ago, was clear on goal. The ball would not come up and he slipped on the pick-up. It trickled towards Jack Kennedy, and he too slid towards it as all 51,000 in the ground screamed in anticipation. For a second, the chance was there and then JJ Delaney arrived. JJ does not slip. The ball flew toward safer ground.

A minute later, DJ Carey - no trickery, just plain and honest work here - was cantering free and setting up Eddie Brennan for the last score of the game.

"I didn't even know what the score was," recalled Barry.

"Like, we got the few goals earlier and maybe the Waterford heads went down a bit but they kept coming back at us and they could have got a goal in the end.

"Paul O'Brien was in but, ah, he missed the pick-up. And I'm sure he is sitting in there heartbroken now. But they are a young Waterford team coming along at the right time and they have a few years of savage hurling in them."

That may be so. It was a day of tough lessons. They aided and abetted Kilkenny in two of the goals. Declan Prendergast slipped as he came to clear a ball saved brilliantly by Ian O'Regan. Brennan pounced. That was after 23 minutes.

Three minutes later, Michael Walsh, surrounded by black and amber, forced a handpass that went straight to John Hoyne. Shefflin ghosted onto his long ball and tapped his second.

It was classic opportunism by the Ballyhale master but all the more remarkable given the week he'd had. Cody's comment was apt: "We all know where Henry was last weekend. Then he gets a ball where there is no danger and in the blink of an eye he had a goal."

Waterford, though, kept responding to those heartbreaks. Flynn was magnificent, Eoin Kelly and Dave Bennett, Séamus Prendergast and Jack Kennedy rising to the occasion. Yet it was impossible not to miss the presence of the silver-headed demon. John Mullane might have won this day for his county.

In the programme notes, GAA president Seán Kelly praised Mullane for accepting his ban with grace. The precedent was there for a visit to the courts.

"I let everyone down," said Mullane afterwards, his voice cracking with emotion. "The team, my family, the people of Waterford. I would have loved to have played out there. But I am happy I didn't do it (go to court) . . . if you do the crime, you serve the time and the GAC were right at the end of the day."

It was class note on which to end a day of high principles. And on march Kilkenny, the county that have set the highest of all.