A season of good hurling lifted to another level by the bluebloods of Tipperary and Kilkenny. This was a match to add to the lore of the old rivalry. Two teams who left every ounce of energy they had on the Croke Park sod during an exhibition of skills which were often sublime. It turned on a hectic two-minute spell close to the end and on the deeds of a kid with a name like a 70s TV copper, Jimmy Coogan.

Coogan suffered a cruciate injury last year and the struggle back has been hard. Yesterday in Croke Park he came into the action with about 16 minutes left, scored 1-1 and hauled Kilkenny into an All-Ireland final. His intervention was huge.

Tipperary and Kilkenny had been level nine times before that. After Coogan's goal Tipp never quite caught up again.

Kilkenny beat Tipperary in championship hurling for the first time since 1967 and now go on to meet Clare in the All-Ireland final on September 8th.

Whatever happens on that day is unlikely to eclipse the game we saw yesterday in terms of hurling skills or sheer excitement. There were great performances all over the place, players who exercised dominance and then got subsumed by a revitalised marker.

Everywhere you looked the battles ebbed and flowed. Eoin Kelly had three points in the first quarter; one for the rest of the game. Philly Larkin was the player of the second half.

And DJ Carey was back of course. The excitement was almost palpable every time he got the ball and in the end he shaded everyone for the story of the afternoon.

He has been away all season and the word was that now that the cathedral of Croke Park was just about finished he would no longer be around to grace it.

Yesterday he came back and found everything to his liking. He laid a lot of his own reputation on the line taking up a starting spot and also taking responsibility for long distance frees. Same old DJ though. By the end they were chanting his name.

He made Kilkenny's goal in the way that only he could. Picking up possession about 40 yards out he showed there's plenty of dodge left in dodger and cut into the heart of the Tipp defence. His club mate and old confederate Charlie Carter was outside him to the right screaming for a pass. With the Tipp defence in two minds Carey opted for the more dangerous procedcure and slipped the ball into Jimmy Coogan.

"I gave it six weeks" he said "I've trained 36 nights. Six times a week for six weeks. As hard as I could. Up till Saturday my legs were still sore. I've done all stamina work . I felt the pace would be there if I had the stamina. I had some ballwork done from the centre of field with the club. And marking somebody like Michael Kavanagh in training you need your touch to be good. So it was stamina. I did it alone mainly. My little fella Seán loves coming with me. He's five. He loves coming and training."

And still even with the magic of DJ on tap again it was hairsplittingly close. People, not least people in Tipp, thought that Brian Cody had made a mistake in dropping Charlie Carter and allowing DJ to walk back onto the team. Afterwards yesterday one couldn't but look at Carey's unique contribution and wonder if it wasn't the difference between the sides.

Carey himself had other theories.

"You're dealing with a team from Tipp that has won an All-Ireland and deserved to win it. Quite possibly they left another behind them this year. They are a great team. By choice I'd like to be coming in winning a semi-final in Leinster and then a Leinster and then come to All-Ireland semi-final. Doing that we could concentrate on getting ready for a semi-final. If we had to meet Tipp or Clare in a qualifying game three weeks ago we mightn't have got this far. The six week break was good for us. We went into training, we hit one another. We improved. Brian Cody always says the fellas who play well in training will be picked. So six weeks of training. Maybe Jimmy Coogan wouldn't have got a look in if it had been matches all the way."

And so they come to Clare in the second Sunday of September, a clash of styles and tactics which already fascinates. Before they left the dressingroom in Croke Park yesterday Kilkenny made the arrangements. Back in Kilkenny training on Tuesday night.

The 53,385 people who showed up for yesterday's classic made it a remarkable weekend for the GAA in another respect also. Armagh beat Sligo by two points in Navan yesterday evening in a replayed All-Ireland football quarter-final which drew a capacity crowd of 29,000. That, added to the 79,000 who watched Dublin beat Donegal on Saturday, means that over 161,000 people watched three GAA games over the weekend, an average of over 50,000 per match. With four weekends of major championship action left this year the GAA are looking at a record summer for attendances.

Regarding next week's All-Ireland semi final between Cork and Kerry there was good news for Kerry from Kerry over the weekend as it transpired that their midfielder Darragh Ó Sé had been red cared for absolutely no reason in a club game. The error which could have cost Kerry one of their key players was spotted just in time by local officials giving Ó Sé a reprieve from a one-month ban. Kerry's rivals Cork, who have a tradition of never bending the rules under any circumstance, have maintained a dignified silence on the matter.