LOCKER ROOM: The work that the county's hurlers began in last winter's bitter dispute has to be finished by the Cork clubs this winter

THURLES ON Saturday night. The place half full and most every soul in the house sodden. And still you’d make the argument that what the hell, all hurling should be played there. End of story. It’s just right.

Saturday will prove an important night for the forensics people when they go tracing their fingers back over the story of this championship. Lots of cracks and fault lines. Some green shoots.

What we know about Limerick now, for instance, is that whatever else may diminish them it isn’t rain. Against Wexford and now Laois they prevailed where others would have drowned. A team once renowned for drinking like fish now swim like ducks.

Still, they huffed and puffed dreadfully through the gloaming on Saturday night, looking the poorer for the absence of the Moran brothers and making some mistakes in front of the posts which Justin wouldn’t have tolerated in an underage side.

Niall Rigney will have been pleased enough with the season’s progress. Injury deprived him of the mercurial Zane Keenan and the want of a little more self-belief maybe deprived his boys of a coup on Saturday but there were some great individual displays from Laois players in Thurles and a revival there would be as welcome as one anywhere.

We’ll understand Limerick a lot better in seven days’ time. By then they will have played Dublin in Thurles and one side or the other will be in the All-Ireland semi-final facing Tipp, something which will give us all pause to think and to wonder.

Galway, who having already done the slamming dodgems thing with Kilkenny, have played huge matches with Clare and Cork since and have yet to go mano a mano with Waterford for another chance to play Kilkenny and will perhaps be taking a look at the small print of the deal that brought them to Leinster. All those years when they wondered were they getting enough hard games? Ah. those were the days.

Saturday was a big night for Galway hurling. Joe Canning ceased to be the boy wonder and did a different, more evolved job for his team. He worked hard at it and his absences from the full-forward line demanded more from those who have dawdled a little too long and too easily in his shadow. For Galway to prosper they must to cease to be the Joe Show. They need to keep opposition full-back lines honest by letting them know that Joe is merely the worst of the three punishments which might be visited upon them.

Galway made a start down that path on Saturday night and, more than that, by closing out the game in such emphatic fashion they crossed a bridge in their own minds. For many years now Galway have been receiving short odds from bookies and pats on the back from commentators and warm praise for their underage success but they have never looked like they could do serious damage. Next week they return to Thurles with the long-required mean streak added to their personality.

On Saturday night, Cork went into the dressingroom a point behind but having played the better hurling and knowing that Joe Canning’s ability with long-range frees was what was keeping Galway alive. Cork knew too what they did to Galway last summer in the same place. And yet Galway brought all the self-belief on to the park in the second half. They wanted it more and they wanted it harder and if the scoreline at the end distorted the nature of the game it didn’t conceal any of the merit of Galway’s win.

And so to Cork. Saturday was an ending of sorts in that changes will have to be made to the complexion and structure of this team. But it was also just a part of an evolution.

Saturday’s game was played with a rip-roaring intensity and physicality which certainly taxed Cork’s absence from the training grounds of winter. There will be more than a few people around the country who will cackle and say ‘good enough for them if it did’ but hurling without this Cork team in the shake-up will be the poorer.

Love them or hate them, Cork have brought something special to hurling since their renaissance in 1999. More colour, more personality, more controversy, more stories, more gossip. . . . And they have been a unique group in that they have tried to find a meaning in what they do. Their journey together has been notably different from that of other teams and the environment they have worked in at home has been different too.

Saturday wasn’t the end but it was a signpost for change. The work that began last winter in that bitter and unnecessary dispute of the Cork County Board’s creating has to be finished by the clubs this winter.

Cork’s doyens have to appreciate that the mere sight of the famous red jersey scares nobody anymore, not with an underage and development structure which would make most people chuckle rather than tremble. The current side emerged to that 1999 All-Ireland from a background of successful colleges, minor and under-21 sides.

That is virtually all gone. Páirc Uí Chaoimh is a dark, crumbling metaphor for the state of the county’s GAA structures. Now that matters are simplified and people can see that the war which was apparently between Gerald McCarthy and the players was really a protective smokescreen of the county board’s design, the real work of rebuilding Cork GAA from the ground up will have to begin.

For Cork’s hurlers there is a near future. In Denis Walsh they have acquired a manager of substance and invention. They felt a few absences this summer and will need little telling that a centre forward of substance and a few more scoring blades are required. The backs need reshuffling but the return of Brian Murphy and the fine form of Eoin Cadogan and Shane O’Neill offer options. Shane Murphy was missed on Saturday due to a shoulder injury but will be there a long time.

Cork’s hurlers, though it wasn’t their intention, ended up sacrificing this season for the bigger picture. In time, if the county gets its act together and creates a structure and a future worthy of its past, people will thank the current generation of players for what they have done off the field as much as on it.

Meantime they have it in them to create one last kick against the machine.

We’ll watch them next spring and summer with the same fascination that the truly different always hold for us.