Time to talk up Kilkenny

Clare swung the doors of their dressing-room open to all-comers. The team famed for their daunting intensity were at rest. You can tell when the mood is good and the atmosphere is sunny in a Clare dressing-room. The hacks are gathered around Brian Lohan. Nobody loiters like a vulture near Lohan on the bad days.

"Two points in it at halftime," he is saying, "but the second-half performance was highly intensive and highly concentrated. It was a combination of two things, we got the break at the middle of the second half and Galway didn't really perform, they didn't get the breaks in the second half."

So are Clare back in business? Was this public disembowelling of Galway a signal that all is well again? In 10 championship games since the 1997 All-Ireland they have now won four, drawn four and lost two. Surreal seasons.

"I don't think that performance would beat Kilkenny," says Lohan. "Maybe when you're looking from the line it's a little bit easier to see but it's hard to judge when you are playing."

And what has changed? Clare sparred like middleweights yesterday, jabbing and dancing. Not at all like the furrow-browed heavyweights of recent seasons for whom every match was a rumble in the jungle.

"I suppose our approach changed more than anything. We have this tendency to get casual after we go well, although that's not excusing the last day because we went badly against Cork as well. We didn't seem to be able to raise it mentally more than anything else. There's nothing wrong with us physically. We seem to be getting a bit better. I don't think there's any problem with hunger."

They still hunger for trophies? "Doesn't everyone."

And Kilkenny? Why not take a moment to talk them up.

"I don't think it will be a problem to lift it against Kilkenny. They're favourites at this stage after all they've done. It'll be a good game."

Jamesie O'Connor sits beside Frank Lohan. You can tell the attention is getting to Jamesie, who likes to be left alone to tend to his own business. Anyway we all stand in front of him as he tries to tie his laces.

"It was a good second-half performance, backs played quite well the midfield were quite good and Gilli (Niall Gilligan) got 2-3 from play, so it was a good performance. But, again, it's only a stepping stone to Kilkenny."

The penalty? A muttered prompt begging him to create a controversy.

"I maybe should have put it away beforehand but I thought he (the referee) was giving frees for softer things the other end of the field. I thought I was fouled alright, but it's neither here nor there."

The hand?

"The hand was fine. It still isn't 100 per cent, but it's not restricting me at all."

Pause. None of us can think of another word to prompt him with.

"Listen lads," he says at last to the great, gawping throng of us standing in front of him, "ye wouldn't just talk to Frank for a while."

Frank Lohan glances up smiling, but apprehensive. In mutual embarrassment we all shuffle off to Liam Doyle. The five points Alan Kerins scored on him last day is a wound as tangible as O'Connor's arm. How's he healing?

"We had enough people writing us off as being over the top," he says, and we nod politely as if he was speaking about some mutual enemy of ours, "but we met on Monday night and met on Tuesday night and spoke a bit about Galway and what they did and what we were going to do to keep them from scoring as much as they did."

Sounds intense.

"There was no panic at all. We knew we didn't play as well as we could. We can't afford to be down one day, the season seems to be a see-saw, but we were here the day of the Leinster final and saw how well Kilkenny went against Offaly.

"They'll try and play as well as that, we'll be trying to keep the same level of performance as today. We can't have the same up-and-down business from now on."

Finally, Kilkenny, the clash already shaping up in expectation at least as the game of the season. There is a pause as we wait for Doyle to install Kilkenny as unbackable favourites.

"We haven't really looked at Kilkenny in detail yet. I don't know when we're back to training, but I'm sure we'll have a meeting this week and we'll start making plans."

And in Kilkenny the temperature chilled by just a degree or two.