All-Ireland SHC Quarter-final replay/Clare v Kilkenny: Last Sunday in Croke Park left everyone tingling. Although the announcement and cancellation of extra-time was one of those fantastic episodes of administrative mystery that makes the GAA what it is, the crowd that arrives in Thurles for this afternoon's replay will hardly be complaining at having to watch it all again.

Still, it is tantalising to wonder what might have happened in that added period. Pity the announcer who made the honest blunder but his sense of theatre was undeniable. It was like calling a 16th round at the end of a classic heavyweight fight. Both teams circled the wagons in a state of some turmoil - Tony Griffin had actually exchanged his shirt - and prepared to go at it again for another 20 minutes.

Brian Cody was in the middle of addressing Martin Comerford in no uncertain terms when the situation was clarified and the teams gratefully broke up to go through the motions of exhausted warm-down routines.

For Kilkenny, the match had been another highly stressful lesson on the hidden perils that lie upon the route through this season of seasons. For Clare there was the the satisfaction of having gloriously demonstrated to the public that the wan and voiceless hour they spent in Waterford's company at the outset of the summer was not a true representation of what they stand for.

Both counties had shining chances to put the game away and both also had to claw their way back from the point of elimination. When the final whistle ended, both teams were hurling on automatic. There was every chance the added time would have been just as gripping and even-handed.

"I kind of thought Clare might have won it had they played on," mused Liam Doyle. "I just thought their fitness was really standing to them and they were playing with confidence and their attitude was perfect and I had a good feeling about them."

The great Bodyke wing back from Clare's lion-hearted years was not completely surprised by the manner and conviction with which his county men acquitted themselves against the All-Ireland champions. He felt the two qualifying games had given Clare a perfect gradient along which to recover from the unnerving defeat they suffered to Waterford. In addition, he felt the Clare physique "most of that team is six foot" - would cope better with Kilkenny than the smaller Galway team which the champions had blown away a fortnight previously.

He figured they would go well but he just didn't know how well. As usual, tributes were paid to the team's passion and spirit in the build-up to the game and although both qualities were to be found in abundance, they were allied to a composed and intelligent pattern of hurling and some great scores.

"We always felt that part of our game was overstated anyhow," said Doyle.

"Like, spirit and fight and all these things are fine but if you don't have the hurlers to go with that, you can win nothing. The tactics that were used the last day worked brilliantly but there is one thing telling a player to go out and do something and another to carry it off. The role Alan Markham played the last day took a lot of reading of the game and smart use of the ball and most people were in agreement that he had a massive say in that match."

The way Anthony Daly deployed his personnel caught the entire hurling nation off-guard. The late return to the first team of Gerry Quinn, named in the half-forward line instead of Daithi O'Connell but then positioned at left-half back; the free sweeping role left to former attacker Markham; the isolation of Niall Gilligan and Tony Griffin in the full-forward line which left Kilkenny defender James Ryall uncertain of his role for the first period - the plan could not have worked better had Daly been in cahoots with the A-Team.

Len Gaynor, who managed Clare in the early 1990s and handed Daly his first captaincy, was in Croke Park and paid special attention to his former protégé in the run-up to the game. He noted the ebullient stride, the chest out, the clenched fist and immediately concluded that the Clare team were primed.

"Even during the parade, he was close to the players and communicating with them. And then Davy Fitzgerald was doing his bit as well. Anthony always had that natural confidence and authority as a player and it was clear the last day that he possessed it on the sideline as well.

"I suppose he got off to an awful start in terms of his managerial life against Waterford but he got everything right the last day. The tactical plan worked so well that he could not have dreamed it any better. He brought Jamesie (O'Connor) in very early and I don't think I was alone in doubting the wisdom of that but then Jamesie turned around and gave a vintage performance. He put Ollie Baker in and he won a big free. So you would have to say that it was a good day for Anthony."

Which is not to imply the opposite was true for Cody. Although Clare worked up a three-point lead as the Kilkenny sideline devised a counter strategy, Ryall became a more prominent factor as the game wore on, occasionally trading long clearances with Markham. Cody's half-time substitute could not have worked better, with John Hoyne bagging a goal with his first touch. When Henry Shefflin began to cut loose in the second half, firing over an unbelievable point to put his team four points clear, it appeared as if the writing was on the wall.

That sense of inevitability lasted for about 30 seconds, Tommy Walsh's dismissal and the subsequent penalty suggesting that Clare had more to offer than a plan to reduce the Shefflin influence. Once Gilligan got the goal back - again from a penalty won by Griffin - Kilkenny buckled down and sought in every way possible to get a result. More often than not, Shefflin was the way: he won the penalty and fired a point that might have won it for Kilkenny but for O'Connor's cool and memorable equalising score. It was a game they could have won or lost with equal ease. It was a close call.

"I think there were mixed views of it," says former Kilkenny player Canice Brennan. "In comparison to the Galway game, it was obviously not as convincing but it seemed to me that that particular game was just suited to Kilkenny because Galway simply didn't have the height to cope with them. And a lot of those lads were beginning to come through when I was there around 1998 so when you consider the success they have had, they have a lot of games played and you can't keep going forever.

"In the bigger picture, I would say Waterford are licking their lips because of the draw. And I suppose around Kilkenny, there is a feeling that Brian (Cody) is going to have to make a few changes in the team before the replay."

It ought to be remembered the champions were forced to play the last half-hour a man in arrears and that although Clare erased their five-point lead with ominous ease in just eight minutes, the teams traded blow for blow over the last 15 minutes.

Kilkenny are as resilient as they come. Their most glaring problems were in attack, which was dependent on Shefflin to the point of being lopsided - although DJ Carey worked hard to win frees and to make the break for Hoyne's goal. Yet Clare got as much scoring power from Seánie McMahon as Kilkenny did from their starting full-forward line.

The options are manifold; the return to the starting line-up of Hoyne, switching Martin Comerford back into full forward where he profited through his height and cleverness last season, the redeployment of Shefflin.

Yet no matter where they play the Ballyhale man, Clare can still counter by placing a sweeper in front of him. Just because the element of surprise no longer exists does not mean the same tactic won't work again.

"It would be impossible to predict what Clare will do next," says Brennan. "They are an eccentric bunch and they just come up with ways.

"The situation reminds me of ourgames against Offaly in 1998. They were poor in the Leinster final but then when we met again in the All-Ireland, they bore no resemblance to the team we had beaten a few months earlier. But obviously, Henry will remain central to their plans because he is probably the best hurler in the country at the moment. So I think it is probably fair to say that the other Kilkenny forwards are just going to have to step up the next day and not be looking for him to lead the way the whole time."

Kilkenny also have to decide whether Walsh's effervescent qualities are best suited to engaging Gilligan, all leanness and sharp-elbowed class. The Tullaroan All Star has done a tour of the lines for Kilkenny since breaking through last year, a victim of his own versatility, and although his selection at corner back worked sensationally against Galway, last weekend was a decidedly unhappy experience for him. There was, and remains, a school of thought that Ryall's long frame would work better on Gilligan, leaving Walsh to flourish in the free role.

"Of course you can see the merits of that," says Gaynor. "Then you look at the Kilkenny bench and there is Michael Kavanagh, a man we all thought to be the best defender in the country a couple of seasons ago, so they have options whatever way."

The guessing game will go on right up to this afternoon's throw-in. But as Liam Doyle points out, you just "can never tell from one game to the next because matches never repeat themselves."

That is particularly true of replays. He will travel down to Thurles today as nervous as ever but full of optimism. "I wouldn't miss it for anything. Sure if we even got half of what we got last Sunday, it would still be some game."