In the week before last Sunday's Guinness All-Ireland hurling final, the first signs of alarm became evident. John Knox, the experienced Kilkenny People reporter, was on RTE Radio One discussing the upcoming match. He laid emphasis on how concerned Kilkenny manager Brian Cody had become about the levels of complacency within the county.

At the time it didn't seem that exceptional a point. The desire to off-load favouritism is an annual ritual in counties, particularly before All-Ireland finals. Yet the fact that Knox saw fit to make the point at the very start of his comments indicated that thoughtful observers were beginning to take fright at the scale of expectation in Kilkenny.

Opponents Cork were seen as a promising young team lacking the experience and hard lessons which Kilkenny had absorbed in reaching the 1998 final won by Offaly. Moreover, the style of Kilkenny this summer had been impressive with 13 goals scored.

Many Kilkenny followers were expecting not alone to win but to win well. Insulating players against such a public environment is nearly impossible despite the best of intentions.

In 1992 Dublin footballers were similarly humbled, by Donegal, and the carnival atmosphere in which several players involved themselves in the weeks leading up to the All-Ireland was plainly seen, in retrospect, to have undermined their chances.

Then Dublin captain, and current manager, Tom Carr remembered how the team had done its best to convince itself that Donegal would be a formidable challenge - ruefully acknowledging that struggling to talk up the challenge of your opponents is an inappropriate way of spending the weeks before an All-Ireland.

For Cork's team - believed to be the youngest in history to win an All-Ireland - the approach to the final was simple and uncomplicated. They had already overreached even optimistic predictions and had no fear of losing. It had already been a good year.

That sort of realisation can be a drag on a team, encouraging them to settle for reaching a final rather than winning it. But for Cork there were a couple of additional elements to their preparation.

There seems little doubt that they were stung by the extent to which they were written off in various media outlets. The fact that RTE's Breaking Ball programme had featured a panel of five print journalists unanimously tipping Kilkenny became a talked-about prompt over the weekend.

Kilkenny on the other hand had a real fear of losing. It would be the first time in over 50 years that a team from the county had lost two successive All-Irelands. There were also pessimists who believed - and still do - that players like corner back Willie O'Connor and centre forward John Power would consider retirement when the match was over.

There were few surprises when the team selections were announced. Neither side made any changes from the successful semi-final line-ups. This was more significant in the case of Cork. It meant that the team had been unchanged all season, another rare phenomenon in modern championship history.

Manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy has made no secret of the fact that he believes in loyalty to a successful team and that this has governed his team-management style since minor days.

There had been pressure on Barry-Murphy and his selectors to start Alan Browne, who had played a significant role coming on as a substitute in previous matches.

Browne is a natural full forward and has played most of his intercounty hurling there. With Joe Deane playing so well in that position, the team management wasn't going to fool around with the system. Despite his solid contributions on the wing, there were doubts about Browne's capacity to last 70 minutes and so he was kept in reserve.

Another regular substitute, Kevin Murray, was playing very well in training and ended up quite close to selection. In the end Ronan was retained, helped by his own form in training which was excellent.

On the day there was a lot of speculation about the weather. Initial assumptions were that the wet, rainy conditions would better suit the more physically mature Kilkenny although both teams would have preferred a dry ground.

Cork went to UCD's Belfield campus for a puck-around on the Sunday morning. The weather was nice, but they knew the change was coming. Jimmy Barry-Murphy was frustrated that the good conditions wouldn't prevail. He kept his disappointment to himself.

Instead Cork accentuated the positive, recalling their highly regarded win over All-Ireland champions Offaly on a wet afternoon which nonetheless provided the match of the season. Ultimately, that experience was valuable.

Moreover, as pointed out by former Cork All-Ireland medallist and manager Justin McCarthy in his column in The Examiner, the conditions in some ways benefited the Munster champions whose classical striking puts the premium on moving the ball, whereas Kilkenny, although also technically assured, had more of a tendency to take the ball to hand and carry it.

Despite the proficiency of both teams, the first-half striking was poor and accounted for much of the total of 23 wides which so disfigured the match as a spectacle.

In the circumstances, a low-scoring match was to Cork's advantage. By half-time Kilkenny led by 0-5 to 0-4. Yet for a team whose attack had clicked early in all of their matches up to the final, it was dispiriting. In addition, key players in the forwards weren't functioning.

There was surprise in Kilkenny that the management didn't move quicker to try and mitigate the damage being caused by Brian Corcoran's domination of John Power and the powerfully focused display of all the Cork backs.

Elsewhere, DJ Carey's shuttle around the attack wasn't yielding any improvement. Brian McEvoy was having his first off-day. Ken O'Shea and Charlie Carter weren't working in the corners and only young Henry Shefflin was having his best match of the season.

The stark definition of victory and failure has obscured how close Kilkenny came to winning the All-Ireland. Going into the last quarter, they led by 0-9 to 0-5 and three minutes later by 0-10 to 0-6. Even in the 58th minute, an Andy Comerford point extended the lead to three points 0-11 to 0-8.

These very serviceable margins had been achieved despite the almost total eclipse of their highly-rated attack. Opinion in Kilkenny is reluctant to blame Brian Cody's management given the greatly improved year up to the final.

This reluctance also rests on the facts of the afternoon. The match was Kilkenny's until the last 10 minutes. With five minutes to go, two forward substitutes were brought on, but the momentum seemed to have died.

Cork's stronger mentality has been attributed to a couple of factors. Primarily, they had won all their matches in the closing minutes. Every one of them had been in the balance as the 60th minute struck and the story of each denouement is remarkably similar.

In those last 10 minutes against Waterford, Clare, Offaly and Kilkenny, Cork outscored their opponents by an aggregate of 0-18 to 04: 0-5/0-1; 0-4/0-1; 0-5/0-1 and 04/0-1. Once they were within shouting distance in a match, they had shown the ability to finish stronger.

There was also the confidence born of success. A young team which keeps winning will go from strength to strength, but the initial confidence came from under-age achievement. Four of Sunday's line-up won All-Ireland minor medals four years ago - beating Kilkenny in the final.

Eight of the team started both of the last two year's successful under-21 finals against Galway and corner back John Browne had also started in 1997.

Jimmy Barry-Murphy knows that what happens next may not be as simple. He acknowledges that there was a certain popularity to Cork's return from the cold, but knows that such public approval won't last if the team fulfils its potential and dominates the coming championships.

Last week, however, he could speculate on how many All Stars his team might collect while reminiscing that only three years ago during his first year in charge, the county couldn't get a player onto the Munster Railway Cup team.