TV VIEW:IT MIGHT be an idea now for Brian Cody and his men to re-do that Meat Loaf tune, something along the lines of "Five out of six ain't bad", with Henry Shefflin and Eddie Brennan – and baby, we could talk about them all night – throwing in sax and guitar solos, just to add a little spice to the effort.

Normal service is resumed, then, Liam MacCarthy is going home after a spell in exile.

Cyril Farrell wasn’t saying “I told you so” come full-time, but he had warned his Tipp-tipping fellow panellists that Kilkenny were hungry, having been starved of success for a whole year, so there was a fair old chance they’d leave Croke Park with their bellies full.

And so it proved.

We’d been told all week that this was an ageing-bordering-on-the-decrepit Kilkenny side, although those stattos who study these things informed us that its average age is in or around 27. Yes, it’s a young man’s game, but when 27 is classed as antiquated we might as well all put on the slippers and be done with it.

Mind you, watching the Monaghan v Kerry All-Ireland women’s football semi-final on TG4 on Saturday didn’t make you feel young-ish either.

Some of us still recall a sprightly Brenda McAnespie lining out in the Monaghan defence when they won their first senior title a couple of years back. Well, 1996 to be precise. Her twins, Aoife and Ciara, were six then. And there they were on Saturday, helping their county see off the Kingdom. It’s just not funny.

“The big question is, have they the legs,” Cyril asked at half-time, not of Aoife and Ciara, but of auld Kilkenny.

By full-time, age was still on his mind. “I don’t know what the man will do, he’ll probably keep going ’til he’s 80 or 90,” he said as the camera picked out a jiggin’ and reelin’ Cody. This was his eighth win in 11 finals as manager, but you half suspected he was still having a think about the three that got away.

It was hard to know what to make of the pre-match omens when it began raining cats (and dogs). Cripes, the floodlights even came on.

Who knew, “Indian summer” actually means Indian-like monsoonish deluges, rather than an unexpected spell of rather pleasant weather.

But then the sun came out. And so did President McAleese, this her last senior hurling final. The field is big enough, but you’d imagine a few more Presidential runners and riders will declare after being reminded yesterday that part of the deal is front-row seats for All-Ireland hurling finals.

Before Michael Lyster handed over to Ger Canning and Michael Duignan, Cyril expressed one last wish: that there’d be no red cards. “If you want to play tennis or golf, that’s fine,” he said, “but this is hurling.”

A lively start, blood everywhere, and that was just the ref. But, to Cyril’s relief, no red cards. “He’ll have a sore nose and two black eyes,” said a sympathetic Tomás Mulcahy, “but shur, it was just handbags.”

“Kilkenny are all over Tipp,” said Duignan, and true enough, the champions were being mauled, going in five points down at the break.

“Ah, they’ve a savage intensity,” said Liam Sheedy of Kilkenny, a year after he’d managed to tame them, but he resisted waving a white and black and amber flag, even if he had the look of a worried man. Tomás did too, but refused to stop tipping Tipp, figuring Declan Ryan’s half-time chat would wake them from their slumber.

Second half. And a second Kilkenny goal.

“Eddie Brennan . . . off he goes . . . like he’s running in Shelbourne Park . . . handpass across to Hogan . . . what a goooOOOOoooooaaaal,” as Ger Canning put it, sounding for all the world like one of those Brazilian “gol, gol, gol, goooOOOOooooool” lads.

After that? Samba hurling from Kilkenny, albeit with a brief interlude for that Tipp-fightback.

“A wounded cat is a very dangerous animal,” concluded Canning, Tomás maintaining the theme: “They were sitting pretty in the high grass waiting for this one.”

Cyril could only purr in admiration.

Back downstairs, captain Brian Hogan was paying tribute to “the girlfriends, the mothers and the wives” who “stayed at home every night when we were off training”.

“I suppose, behind every good man is a good woman,” he said, not realising they were off clubbing all the time. (Legal department: “No, they weren’t”).

Wrinkly auld Kilkenny, then, average age 27, prevailed over the youngsters. As the Twain fella put it, “Age is an issue of mind over matter – if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

Kilkenny didn’t mind, after all, five out of six ain’t bad.