Supporting cast whoop it up in wings

Louis Mulqueen illuminated the place with the glow of his smile. "I thought it was a fabulous game of hurling," said Mulqueen with cool objectivity. "Two strong committed teams. It was heart and determination that won it for us, it was spirit that came through. When we got together this year, right from the start we had confidence."

Mulqueen, who brought Clare's minors to an All-Ireland, could suffuse a routed army with confidence he's so upbeat. The team skip along to the beat of their coach's metabolism. "We burst into it with enthusiasm and scored well, but then we let them into the game with a few silly scores. They scored five in the first half, four from frees and one from play. I was disappointed at half-time and I let the team know about it. We came back in got the heads lifted and we powered on."

Jamesie O'Connor has been in winning dressing-rooms so often in the past few years that there is a case for charging him rent.

"We started really well, set into it with great pace. Then we let the tempo drop and their half-back line got into it. Tony Delaney had a good game and we gave away some stupid frees and at half-time we said to ourselves that we had let them in. But we always play well in the second half. Sure we over-elaborated, gave stupid passes, but we were always comfortable."

George Frend sat forlorn in the Toomevara dressing-room as the cup was being presented. George looks sorrowful at the best of times. Yesterday he was merely resigned, though.

"They took their chances, we failed to score from play. If you don't do that, you don't win games. We are a young team and we'll be back. Their start set us back. We've no hurling done in the last few weeks and your confidence is a little shaky when you don't have enough ball work done. It made us jittery about going for scores in the forwards.

"Any time they came up our end in the second half they looked like scoring a point whereas we never threatened them up front. We were under pressure the whole time at the back. People talk about the three All Stars, but they have a lot of players on the wings doing their jobs as well."