Keith Dugganon how this wonderful side combine those vital moments of grit with scores of outrageous artistry to reach an unrivalled pitch

JUST AFTER Henry Shefflin had fired as mean a penalty as has ever been delivered in hurling, Michael Kavanagh found himself chasing down a ball towards the sideline in front of the Hogan stand.

A breathtaking game was truly up for grabs now. The luckless Benny Dunne had walked early, punished for a moment of rashness. Tipperary, gallant and undaunted, now found themselves trailing by a point and a player and the match was into its last 10 minutes.

It was reaching its crescendo. Kavanagh faced a tricky job just to keep the ball in play: the pitch was slippery and the Freshford veteran might have conceded this was a lost cause and that a sideline ball for Tipperary would be of no great consequence; that it would give the defence a second to realign and gather themselves after Shefflin’s slingshot.

But Kavanagh reached the ball and he kept it on the right side of the line and – the umpire was perfectly placed here – he himself went out of bounds but kept possession and made his clearance, clean and dropping down in front of the players, stripy forwards and blue and gold defenders scrambling for purchase and position under the gloom of the Hogan Stand.

Under ten seconds later, Martin Comerford was wheeling away in celebration; another Kilkenny goal and another day when the September sky turned slowly amber.

Just like that, Kilkenny had the audacity, the poise, the sheer bloody neck, if you like, to pierce a gallant Tipperary defence two times in succession.

The finish, of course, was sublime.

But its beginning could be said to reside at the very heart of what makes this Kilkenny team tick: chasing down lost causes, not quitting. Keeping going. It was something that Michael Rice elucidated on when he was asked about his first All-Ireland final start.

“My toughest game in four years, anyhow My first start in an All-Ireland final. But the league final was a tough match as well. We were under serious pressure. At one stage we were 20 points to 17 down and you were thinking, ‘God we need something to happen, we need to up it’.

“But as Brian always says, it could be just a foot in somewhere or a flick of a ball. It is not gone. You keep going and the thing that might look so unimportant might be the most important thing that you could do in a match. So it was never going to be a case of us just giving up.”

Brian Cody was sitting beside the young Carrickshock man and as the midfielder spoke, the manager nodded in agreement and it was clear his mind travelled back to an earlier match in the championship, on a bright Saturday evening in Tullamore when the champions met Galway in a novel Leinster semi-final.

“We were facing defeat, if you like, as well. We were being led by five points in the second half. And that was a tough place to be as well. But the players responded again and again. I always say that the scoreboard only matters once in the whole game: that is when the final whistle goes.

“And three points of a lead is absolutely nothing in hurling. And the players of the ability that were out there today – some of the scores from both teams were outrageous, lads over shoulders and on the sideline and hitting points from all sorts of angles; there were periods when that was happening for both teams. So the three-point lead didn’t really matter.

“It was just a matter of keeping going and keeping going and creating breaks. And then Martin came up with a goal at a pretty crucial time and then Henry’s penalty as well. Goals give you breathing space. And all the talk beforehand was that we would be punished by goals. Where in actual fact that didn’t happen.”

As always, Cody was reluctant to quantify this victory. He is consistently asked and he consistently gives the same reply: that every hurling season is a complete and unique entity.

Still, even he could not resist from ruminating on the overall journey in the happy hour after they had completed the fourth All-Ireland title in succession, copper-fastening the team’s place in the pantheon.

“To win one All-Ireland is just great and terrific. So many counties would give anything to win an All-Ireland – as we did.

“To go and repeat it was just great. And then to win the fourth one in a row is just . . . magical.

“It is an outrageous thing to do. How difficult is it? It is just mad difficult, really.

“Crazy really to think that those players have done this in this day and age.

“And again it is a tribute to the kind of people they are as well as the skill that they have.”