Brian Cody's face is battered by the elements and lit up by the excitement. He leans against a wall in one of the myriad rooms buried beneath the stands in Croke Park and confesses that on days like yesterday managers are just along for the ride.

"I had no idea what to do lads, to be honest. To be on the line, well the ball is flying up and down the field with a massive intensity and ferocity, they are getting scores, they are putting us to the pin of our collar. We got to half-time a point up and that was a fierce bonus. We hadn't played with any real fluency. People talk about the six-week gap but we hadn't focused on that. We were playing second fiddle in the hurling stakes but there was great character and spirit and commitment there. "

This is disarmingly candid from a man who has seen the game turned by a substitution he made. Jimmy Coogan snapped a goal and a point in the space of a couple of minutes and after that the tide was going out for a wonderful Tipp team. Cody shrugs "I was so far away from the goal, I was down with our full back line I looked down and saw a green helmet and said, 'Jesus Henry, the man'. They are fierce alike on the field. I only heard afterwards that Jimmy Coogan got the goal.

"Ah, I know. I'm coming to the point. DJ's pass for the goal was a bit special. He had an easier option with Charlie outside. I thought the maturity and the guts Jimmy showed to take on the point-scoring chance was amazing. It wasn't even a point-scoring chance. He was only a short time on the field. That impressed me, I must say. A point at that time was a huge thing and the kind of point it was it lifted us."

Brian Cody doesn't often seem unguarded but when he talks now you can see why as disparate and talented a group of players as Kilkenny's have pulled together under him. The game still fascinates him.

"At half-time I said very little. Essentially you have to hand it over to the players. They said an awful lot of things to each other. They have an ambition, a desire, a hunger. You pick the players, you have to trust them. Their desire is total, they are seeing things out there and calling them. I said about two or three sentences. We have a great driving captain in Andy Comerford.

"Listen it's great to be in the All-Ireland final."

He sighs. He's tired now but hurling will seduce him again tomorrow.

"We have a different battle ahead of us now," he says. "A different battle altogether, really "Ah it's a war," he says, laughing gently. And he talks on, describing how the players that made Clare a great team are the ones who have survived into this hurling decade, how this will be a game which will fascinate and engage.

He finishes with a quiet word about Tipperary.

"Listen, we had a great start to the second half. Then we were rocked back with a goal. There's not a puc of the ball between us. We've beat a team that we know are as good as us."

Inside in the Kilkenny dressingroom there are only giants left. Philly Larkin. Peter Barry. Henry Shefflin and DJ Carey. The four horsemen of Tipp's apocalypse.

"You're not proven unless you win an All Ireland so we were fired up as a team." says Philly. "You're under pressure every game. You have to produce it or you will be called ashore. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and he was saying we've been in six semi-finals in a row and only one All-Ireland to show for it. You want to win. That's not good enough."

Peter Barry was enjoying himself. The intensity of it all appeals to him. "It was a massive game. John Carroll is a fantastic hurler and then Brian O'Meara came in and he's a fantastic hurler, too, and you're just there, all the backs and all the forwards, going man to man trying to win your position. You couldn't lose concentration for a second. Their goal, even it was from a lapse. We let a man go and we shouldn't have let a man go."

Henry Shefflin is gathering his hurls and his gear. He's had to play today on his close friend, Eamon Corcoran. "We weren't close out there today," he laughs. "Eamon is a great friend of mine. I was disgusted when I heard he was playing centre back. I didn't want to be marking him. I talked to him last Sunday. I knew there was something up, he wasn't taking the piss out of me. I'm disappointed for Eamon this evening and I was delighted for him last year when he won an All-Ireland. Over the winter maybe we'll have a session and talk about it all. What's killing me is he scored a point at the end. I'll be hearing about that for the rest of me life."

And last in the line, DJ. Back from the brink of the sitting room and slippers again. He showed there's plenty left in him. It took something from him all the same.

"I am tired. It was heavy going, in fairness. If you are in Nowlan Park maybe it wouldn't be like this but when you add pressure, intensity, everything on top of a hurling match." Coming back like this, was it a burden?

"In fairness, the burden has always been on. No less today even though we have great players, excellent players. I was given a role today. Number 15. My responsibility was corner forward. If my man got the ball I wasn't to let him out too easy. If I got the ball I was to create or score. That's what we grew up hoping and wanting to do.

"I think as a victory it rates up there as one of the greats. Not because it was Tipperary but because of the match, the build up, everything. I was the only one today who had ever played against Tipp in a championship game. It's a great occasion. Great for Kilkenny hurling."

Down the corridor Nicky English and company are getting ready to leave Croke Park for another year. They have a serene dignity about them, befitting a team which has lost a great match.

"It's very disappointing to be honest," says English. "But we couldn't have asked for more, we fought our best but we went down as proud champions."

Tommy Dunne echoes that sentiment: "We gave everything we had out there, we have nothing more to give. No excuses, no tiredness or anything."