LOCKERROOM:Kilkenny were throwing it around in a manner which suggested that they would being doing a number on Tipp, then all hell broke loose

COME BACK. Come back everyone. We’re going to have a hurling championship after all. In Nowlan Park, after Kilkenny had beaten Cork by 27 points, or 127, or whatever it was a short few weeks ago, Brian Cody stood in the tunnel with the media and given the breadth of the margin found himself unable to play down the capabilities of his team. Beating Cork back out the gate was novel pleasure for audience, players and manager, but Cody mistrusts days like that – and he is right.

Of more interest to him will be his side’s final two outings in this year’s league.

Dublin came to Nowlan Park, packed their defence and hit hard and had enough hurling and enough ambition to lose by two points and to regret the fact.

Tipperary, in yesterday’s league final, came closer and went home in the end empty handed but full-hearted. They know now what they have and they have looked into the whites of Kilkenny eyes and seen nothing supernatural, nothing to be afraid of.

As the game matured yesterday you got a sense that probably Kilkenny had been around the block enough times to hold Tipperary off in the end. But you watched Tipp and saw them grow. Kilkenny did what they knew they could do. Tipperary went to the edge of self-belief and could walk on this summer.

A strange day.

Sometimes, the league is defiantly, modestly and resolutely only the league. And at other times, despite itself, the league is something else. Yesterday, it mutated into a proving ground. Young Tipperary players stood up and claimed the heritage. Early on we expected that they might end the afternoon in stockades.

The first two points of the afternoon went to King Henry, the brace being his regal entitlement we felt, like the freeman of a city being granted commonage on all public swards. We were willing at that stage, given the long odds on a cliffhanger, to settle for a lesser type of spectacle. Kilkenny were throwing it around in a manner which suggested that they would being doing a number on Tipp. We’d settle for guessing how high they would run up the margin.

And then all hell broke loose.

A couple of Tipp goals, not quite things of beauty, but triumphs of the will and, if there is one thing needed if one is to triumph over Kilkenny, it is will. Two Tipp goals, a pair of yellow cards. An injury to Brian Hogan. The ground trembled under seismic forces.

The fate of Shefflin was of most interest. Pádraig Maher, the teenage wing back, followed him around with terrier-like ferocity and scourged the great man with a disrespect which was fascinating to behold. Nothing went right for Henry.

Even the little flashes of genius yielded nothing. Close to half-time he fed a lovely quick-thinking, low pass in Aidan Fogarty who was backpeddling and had to let it come to him. In the end, a point was the sole reward of invention. At the end of the first half, Shefflin went in on Paul Curran to see if life would be easier there. It was slightly. He latched on to a ball out to his right, turned and from 21 yards with extra like dip and spin, as standard, had a shot at goal. Brendan Cummins looked unimpressed as he made a fine save look easier than he needed to.

In the end, Henry got his marching orders, fed up to the teeth with the harrying and snapping at his heels. Six minutes into the second half, he was asked to take the long walk. His tether had been shortening with each new frustration and affront. He’d had warnings, the view of the black book and finally a yellow.

By then, Kilkenny looked almost human.

Early in the second half, Tipp just came out and ran at the Kilkenny defence in squadron formation. The ball moved quickly. Corbert handpassing inside to Callanan who put it away. Tipp’s third goal.

This is an interesting development in itself.

Kilkenny conceded four goals in their opening six games of the league, including two on the day they were mugged by Waterford in the rain. In their last two outings they have conceded a total of seven. Taking them on physically and aggressively seems to offer the chance of a jackpot. Of course, scoring goals against Kilkenny doesn’t end the challenge. Just like getting past the guard in the back means you are coming out with a bag of swag.

After that third goal for instance the ball went directly to the far end of field where Richie Hogan, who grew to be a man yesterday in hurling terms, stuck it in the far net having taken the family entitlement of steps.

Kilkenny got out of Semple Stadium alive yesterday, but a league which hitherto had served as a pretty forlorn preface to the summer offered in it’s final paragraphs the promise of thrills to come.

Yesterday, there was nothing phoney, ersatz or counterfeit about what transpired.

It was summer intensity. Gloves off stuff.

Not a league game as such. And Kilkenny’s credentials were interrogated again.

When those questions were asked they had answers. Following Hogan’s goal they were irresistible for a while yesterday and Fogarty on 49 minutes got the gusher of a goal that their incessant drilling had suggested was coming. That brought the gap back to two points and even though Noel McGrath went straight down the field and stole a point back, the momentum of game was changing.

McGrath grew some more yesterday too. He is the real deal, as they have known in Tipp since he stepped out of nappies and straight into minor sides, but the prospect of getting Eoin Kelly back full fit and back into a full forward line with McGrath this summer must be tantalising for Liam Sheedy at this stage.

Yesterday’s was a game that both managers (and several other county managers) will be watching again and again for what clues it offered. Odd sights and bizarre visions everywhere. Tommy Walsh was a lucky boy, for instance, to stay on the pitch having flung his hurley at John O’Brien. Even the Kilkenny bench had a man out and warming up in expectation of a yellow card. Benny Dunne was resurrected and his first act was a little run through the centre ending with a handpass to Lar Corbett who should have had a goal.

And there was some wonderful defending by the Tipp full-back line. Paddy Stapleton coming like a fireball and just getting a stick to Michael Grace’s handpass at the end of a piercing run. All day afternoon the Tipp full-back line had a little of the hell’s kitchen heat about them and seeing Stapleton come fearlessly into the gap raised the temperature some more.

There were some bog cards thrown on the table early on at Semple yesterday and the stakes got raised way beyond the those associated with a league game. Nobody lost really. Hurling needed a game like this. Tipp needed a display like the one they gave. Kilkenny needed to be tested and in passing that test in the manner they did accrue more credit than they did from any of the hammerings they delivered early in the championship.

The league. The league.

Yesterday it rescued the championship.

Fast forward, please.