Sideline Cut:The news emanating from the Marble County over the past few days has been deeply alarming. It would appear that in terms of getting up for this year's All-Ireland final, Kilkenny requires a good belt of Viagra. Nothing is happening down there, at least if the radio reports are to be believed.

There is a tradition, generally dictated by the television people, that in counties whose teams are appearing in All-Ireland finals the locals will generally behave in good-natured lunatic fashion in order to assure the rest of the country All-Ireland "mania" is alive and well within their privileged borders.

This is no problem in counties who appear in All-Ireland finals once in a blue moon. In Limerick, the word is most of the county has gone delightedly and certifiably daft for the week. Happiness has overcome them. In May Richie Bennis discovered he couldn't stop hugging people and Limerick has learned to love again.

Kilkenny is different. Kilkenny folk are seasoned practitioners at this business. While most houses have boxes of Christmas decorations packed away in the attic, Kilkenny families also store away their hurling-final flags and bunting and Garfield the Cat puppets wearing Christy Heffernan's original shirt from 1982 with which to decorate the house each September.

RTÉ send cameramen to capture footage of Kilkenny lads demonstrating their skills with hurl and sliotar. The effect is generally as dazzling and daunting as watching Luke Skywalker performing his tricks with the light sabre.

Those RTÉ colour reports probably cause thousands of boys living in the top half of Ireland to become so demoralised they quit the sport instantly and try their hand at the big ball or rugby or whatever. Kilkenny kids hold hurls in a way that makes you believe they never leave them down; the ash sticks are like extensions of their natural selves.

On the Six One News, the entire country watches them as they belt the ball off gable walls or execute outrageous little taps and shimmies around the amused television man, who beams at us, delighted at the sheer effrontery of these rascals. At the end, the hurling children will be prevailed upon to give their prediction and cheerfully they will shout, "Up the Cats!" while striking rasping shots 65 metres through a tyre suspended by rope from the sycamore in the field. And often, these kids are no more than four.

It is meant to be fun and light-hearted but the reality is as terrifying as watching the youth academies of the Chinese Olympic gymnastics programme. Which is not to say there is anything regimented or joyless about the Kilkenny attitude to hurling. It is just that in peeking behind the curtains of Kilkenny hurling, the rest of us are instantly overcome with the despairing knowledge we are light years behind: that in terms of hurling, Kilkenny is in a different universe.

For the past decade, Kilkenny hurling has set a standard of excellence that has taken its own people by surprise. There are 10-year-old kids in the county who probably assume Kilkenny are going to appear in every All-Ireland final of the next 100 years. And the thing is, they may be right.

So this year, the hurling towns and villages have been unable to feign giddiness at the prospect of this latest final. They cannot pretend it is a thrill. According to most visitors, they have been slow to get the decorations up.

That is understandable and it is also dangerous. It is probably one of the reasons why Brian Cody has been on the radio so much for the past few days. The Kilkenny manager has never been a man for hyperbole; he has an instinctive antipathy toward the frivolity of "hype" that precedes All-Ireland final weekends.

But while rampant expectation of yet another visit of the Liam MacCarthy can have a disastrous effect on the team, the prospect of the county sleepwalking through the first weekend in September is equally problematic. Even Cody admitted yesterday that what is commonly referred to as "the buzz" was not exactly deafening in the city.

But accusing Kilkenny of lacking All-Ireland final atmosphere is nonsense. They simply cannot pretend any longer. Hurling and All-Ireland finals surely mean different things in that county. They celebrate success in a lower register and probably in a more meaningful way. Hurling is part of what they are. It is locked into bloodlines and the land and inherited traditions and values and the retention of something undiluted and unique in this generic world.

And the thing is Kilkenny are never "in your face" about what hurling means to them. There is much to Kilkenny beyond hurling. Thomastown may well be the prettiest town in Ireland. The choice of quality drinking taverns in the city is stunning. And there are many hundreds of music fans aged 30-plus who retain fond memories of Engine Alley, the Noreside rock band from 1989/1990 who (briefly) looked set to be the next big thing.

But hurling is what we know and what we expect from Kilkenny. And this weekend, the public, if not the team, are labouring to rise to the occasion. It is not that they are spoilt or blase about the rich vein of form their team has been showing for, oh, 100 years now. It is simply that while Limerick people would derive genuine ecstasy from winning tomorrow, Kilkenny fans will go away with a quiet and intense afterglow of satisfaction. The pleasure comes in witnessing the harvesting of another good summer of hurling and of knowing that this tradition is in good shape for next year.

Theirs is a private joy: you either understand them or you don't.

Either way, Kilkenny folk do not mind. The odds are that they will tiptoe out of Dublin with the MacCarthy Cup for the 30th time tomorrow evening. And though they will be broadly congratulated, it is often publicly bemoaned that Kilkenny's superiority cannot be helping the development of the game.

But save some drastic intervention - save sending the graduates of St Kieran's off up to hurl with the Ulster counties for five years or banning the county from the senior championship - nothing is surer than the Marble County will win more All-Ireland titles, if not next year then probably the year after that. If you are a Kilkenny person, watching and comparing All-Ireland triumphs cannot be a bad way of measuring the passing years.

Maybe in 50 years' time, Kilkenny hurling people will look back on this decade in wonderment. Maybe the county of understatement will some day be all atremble as it prepares for a first All-Ireland final in 20 years. There was a time not so long ago when they believed in Tipperary the winning would last forever, and yet it did not.

But when it comes to Kilkenny, we should not mistake quietness for lack of interest.

We will hear their voices clearly in Croke Park tomorrow.

That is their place and their time and they have no intention of going away.

But whatever happened to Engine Alley?