As battle cries go, it lacks a certain something. It's not even in the class of "go, win one for the gipper", but Larry O'Gorman spoke from the heart.

He spoke about bingo.

"They said we might as well be at home playing bingo." Deep breath. "Well there'll be no bingo in Wexford for a while."

When Larry talks it seems like there is no off-switch. He oozes the passion, the right stuff that is at the core of this Wexford team on its best days. "A little saying I have," says Larry, "everyman a brother. We were all like brothers there today. All going forward. Doesn't matter if you kick it, knee it, hurl it, just keep it moving forward."

You wonder how Wexford pulled off this stunt, how they picked themselves up, snorted the smelling salts, got the dizziness from their head and hurled down to the wire against Limerick. Then you look at guys like Larry O'Gorman and the mystery falls away.

They have a handful of these guys who care deeply and are able to express it. "It's players that count most," said Larry. "We had umpteen meetings after the Kilkenny game. We worked together as a team, we didn't doubt, we knew we had commitment, we knew we had guts , we knew we could have thrown in the towel but thankfully we didn't. We fought and fought and fought and now we are looking to the Tipp game. Another day in the sun and, who knows, another beating. We're looking forward to it."

Tipp will start that day as favourites and, even if they justify that, Wexford's season will have been salvaged. They picked themselves up yesterday, dusted themselves down and opened for business again.

Little wonder that Larry O Gorman's discourse to the media is interrupted by a doppleric whooping. Liam Griffin goes yelping up the corridor, as happy as a hurling man can be.

"There's Liam Griffin gone dancing by," says Larry as if nobody had noticed. Inside the Wexford dressing-room nobody has located Damien Fitzhenry, but his name is on many lips. "I didn't see much of the second goal," says Larry Murphy.

"He came out with the ball, I think he got hooked, he was very down at half-time but he's the true Fitzhenry, he stood up and stitched a penalty and then the twenty one-yard free, a thunderblast, it wasn't just a free, it was a bolt of lightning."

It was and in Limerick they'll remember it that way. In Wexford, though, moving on is the challenge. They steal a moment to look back however.

"We were down after Kilkenny this year. Thirteen points maybe reflected the match but for long periods we were well in it. At this level you can't afford to miss chances and we didn't get in our clearances against Kilkenny.

"We knew we had a lot of pride to restore, apart from Laois, we haven't won a decent game in Croke Park in three years. A lot of this team are facing a crossroads though. Liam Dunne is 33, Larry 0 is 33, SeβFlood is 33, I'm 28 going on 29. But we had four debutantes from under-21 today."

As coming out parties go, the debutantes could have few complaints. It hadn't been shaping so well though in the weeks leading here. The Wexford performance in the Leinster final was abysmal and even the legendarily enthusiastic Wexford following seemed to have lost the faith yesterday.

"The criticism was probably justified," said Murphy. "We haven't done anything in championship hurling in nearly three years. We've been beaten by Offaly by 11, by 13 the second year.

"I'm sure Tipp aren't overly worried yet but Ger Loughnane wrote in the paper that it would be a great semi-final set up between Limerick and Kilkenny and between Tipp and Galway. I hope anyway that some critics eat a few words.

"We got our attitude right today. A lot of us are reaching the wrong age. We have pride in ourselves though. I know a lot of people in Wexford haven't a lot of belief in this team, but a milestone was the under-21 win three days after the Kilkenny match. 10,000 people in Wexford Park. That showed the affinity there is for hurling in the county."

Tony Dempsey is washed in on a tide of well-wishers. That particular tide has been out for a while, but yesterday it broke fine and foamy. Dempsey wasn't about to get carried away on it though.

"We were very, very lucky. We got the breaks today and Limerick were unlucky. I said to you (the media) in the moments of despair, well not of despair because hurling managers can't despair that's for media, that the Kilkenny team are a lot better than most, they'd take a lot of Munster teams. One never knows. We were full of passion today, but I'd like to pay a tribute to the giants of Limerick.

"For my money there wasn't a dirty stroke in the match, some huge physical battles, crunching challenges in the spirit of hurling."

Finally, soft steps down the corridor to where Eamon Cregan stands. As somebody says, we've seen him worse. There is something about this team which has caught his imagination and maybe a piece of his heart. He talks about them in a future tense sort of way.

"We have to develop a ruthless streak and put every team away when they should be put away. Until then, we'll win nothing. We played almost our full hand today. You try everything. Two points up with 30 seconds to go. . . . Credit to the lads they came up here, they tried their best and it wasn't good enough. It's a hard lesson but there is time for this team, the average age is 23 or 24. You have to learn to lose before you learn how to win. We have to start all over again now."

And will they learn it together, the players AND Eamon Cregan?

"That's a question I'll have to think about in the next month."