In the cramped little dressing-room under the slant of the main stand in Pairc Ui Chaoimh the Clare players untangled their thoughts and wondered were they designed for tears or laughter.

Despite the summer storm of giddiness which David Fitzgerald's cold-blooded penalty provoked, last Sunday was largely a sobering experience for Clare fundamentalists. Lots of the cornerstones of the team's progress appeared to have crumbled. Tipp weren't cowed in the least by Clare's ferocious physicality.

David Fitzgerald noted that Tipp had impertinently scored 18 points. "Makes it's own statement," said the goalie as Clare headed away to figure out ways of rolling back the rock and resurrecting themselves. Six days.

Down the way, the Tipperary dressing-room was only slightly jollier. There was some gentle joshing of Conal Bonnar, the old man of the Tipperary half back line. Was his high colour a legacy of the soft Cork sun which he was taking as the two younger boys hurled, or was it from the excessive exertion of keeping up?

Not too much lightness of being in there though. It's one thing to know you have the ability to pull off a coup, another to know that you have to do it all again in a week when the sense of ambush is gone.

While the Clare public debated whether the game represented the end of the road or mere problems with the starting motor, the team got together on Monday and Tuesday night for light sessions in Ennis and for some heavy duty introspection.

The mood in the dressing-room after the game was virtually unbroken through the team dinner in a Cork city centre hotel and the journey home. Several key members of the squad delivered the opinion that Tipperary had been better virtually all over the field.

That was as indisputable as was Loughnane's strident assertion that Clare had got themselves out of jail last Sunday. Solutions anybody? With six days to turn back the tide, Loughnane wasn't blessed with a window for experiment. The team named on Tuesday night was always going to look a lot like the team which played last Sunday. The team which actually starts this afternoon will probably look even more like it.

What kept the rows raging in Clare all week was the perceived staleness in key areas. Clare are accustomed to several of their forwards failing, with Jamesie O'Connor and any one of the others taking up the slack as demanded. Last week, though, the problems were more deep seated.

Sean McMahon, for instance, broke even with Declan Ryan and, in doing what most centre backs would be happy to do, reminded us that Clare are accustomed to more from him. If Ryan's physicality is to occupy the Doora-Barefield man to the same extent this afternoon, thus depriving Clare not just of the long drives but of McMahon's Checkpoint Charlie-like presence, then Clare will struggle.

Louis Mulqueen, who coached McMahon and the rest of his Doora-Barefield clubmates to a splendid club All-Ireland win earlier this year, brought the club boys back training last Thursday. Although McMahon and the Doora-Barefield county men have been in action for some time now, Mulqueen feels McMahon's low profile was less a product of tiredness than Tipperary's tactical acumen.

"Sean McMahon had a quiet day and people said he was a tired player, but the ball was going over his head a lot of the time," Mulqueen says. "Tipp had worked that much out. If I was playing against Clare I'd do the same. I'd throw the ball into the corners and I'd run at Brian Lohan. Clare will have to counteract all those moves. From Nicky's (English's) point of view, that's the worry. He made the plans and they worked, but they didn't get away. Clare will adapt."

McMahon isn't the only Clare player who needs to inflate himself to the full capacity of his reputation this afternoon. Scores have always been a matter of some exertion for Clare, but with Jamesie O'Connor's extraordinary consistency this has never been a life-threatening problem. Last Sunday, Jamesie scored his first championship goal but had what was for him a quiet afternoon. The lack of profile is attributed partly to a blow to the head which shook him a little and partly to the general lack of muscle in the Clare forwards.

In fairness, O'Connor turned in the work, huge amounts of it, but the scores didn't mount up between the brackets behind his name. Clare might suddenly note to their surprise that they have a sheaf of quick, light forwards now and very little bulk. Jamesie is working hard but feeding off less.

Last Sunday in the dressingroom he was, with typical frankness, the only one fingering his forward line comrades for the pressure the defence had been put under.

"The backs had it raining in on them all day," he said. "That's down to us. We have to defend harder when we get the ball, make it harder for them so the backs get a break."

All of which makes the reselection of Stephen McNamara something of a surprise, if not an outright smoke-screen. Betting in Clare is heavy on Ollie Baker or Enda Flannery moving to centre forward today to occupy David Kennedy. Baker has done some work there in training and was playing there against Cork in a challenge when he last injured himself.

Mulqueen reckons Baker's character more than matches his physique. "If they want 70 minutes from him he'll give it, he'll go like a bull, because he knows if he doesn't it might be the last hurling this summer."

The reshuffle might bring Niall Gilligan to his best position, corner forward, and shove Alan Markham inside to full forward until Conor Clancy arrives in. With the ball hopping just so on summer swards the time could be right for an intervention from The Sparrow O'Loughlin, but the surface at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, while improving, remains most unswardlike. PJ O'Connell, just back to the fold, may be asked to keep his fingers in his pockets for another while yet.

The sufferings of the Clare fullback line last weekend went unpunished to the extent that Paul Shelley, for all his muscularity and presence, is not a natural forward. The damage he inflicts isn't yet commensurate to the panic he causes.

"Shelly's upper body strength is so phenomenal the only thing is to take the big gamble and play him from the front," says Mulqueen. "And the other question is can Shelly do the exact same again? That's a big thing for Tipp. Nine Clare players, I would say, had bad games last week. Lots of Tipp fellas played out of their skin. The centre back in Tipp had three Clare players make him look good. Can he do that again?"

The summer without Clare in it is a sobering thought for the GAA. What an extraordinary and revolutionary run of events we have lived through since 1994, a half decade worth of hurling All-Irelands during which the silver hasn't flashed at all in Cork, Tipp or Kilkenny. Offaly and Wexford have been big players, but the show, the revival of hurling, has had Clare as its epicentre. If they are to vanish entirely, or to dwindle in transition, they will leave a hole behind. There is little appetite for a return to the old triangular oligarchy.

Good teams come and go, but a team of such articulate and passionate players are granted to a sport just rarely. Clare's decade has been one of epic struggle and achievement. They have had six days of doubt, but might not be ready for the wilderness yet.

Who could ask for more?