Larry Tompkins makes his way from dressing-room to dressing-room in the hideously overcrowded tunnel beneath the stand. Larr-eeee Larr-eeeee. And he grins foolishly, waves, keeps grinning as every beer-breath in the county slaps his back.

Larr-eeee.

Long time coming, this vindication of his management skills. Yesterday, though, his team put it together beautifully.

"I thought we played well right through the field," he says when eventually we gather around him, "but the backs especially made a big impact for us. When we came in at half-time we thought we had a good chance. They had only four scores, and we thought we deserved more out of the half so we got out there. I thought in the second half we were in charge in midfield and the goals were inevitable."

Joe Kavanagh, for whom the big time beckons after years of promise, ties his shoelaces and keeps talking to the whirring tape machines.

"Maybe you could say Fachtna's goal was a little fortunate, but he took it well and they had two fortunate goals as well. That's the game."

There was more than a win to celebrate for Kavanagh. He'd wagered tidily on himself to be the first to score yesterday. After just two minutes he hit the jackpot.

"I backed myself to score first, I did it with Joe Deane the last day in the hurling and it just came up trumps. I just had a fancy for myself. The forwards put a bit of a gamble on in every game. It doesn't matter though. The main thing is we won today. You could see the hunger for it out there."

Sean Og O hAilpin gets dressed and ready for the busiest period of his young life. Two All-Ireland semi-finals in August. The last of the dual stars pocketed two Munster medals in July. Some hairy moments yesterday though.

"I'd blame myself for the two goals," he says, "I was lacking in concentration and there's no better person to finish them off in the game than Aodhan. It was a minor setback, you just carry on with it. In fairness, in the second half there wasn't too much coming in."

Towards the end a fine block on Billy O'Shea by O hAilpin spared Cork the trauma of a close finish.

"It would have been a shame to let in another goal. Desperation stakes for everyone. Anthony Lynch had a great block on John Crowley and then I got my fingers to a Billy O'Shea one. I won't be thinking All-Ireland now. I'm happy to win the two semi-finals and worry then."

Down the hall the Kingdom boys were soberly dressing. Aodhan MacGearailt, with two goals in his first Munster senior final, could be forgiven the glum look. "We weren't happy at half time, we never got going. I wouldn't say we were ever happy. Ball into the forwards probably wasn't great, but I thought our backs did well. Maybe the movement wasn't good enough. There are loads of factors. If we won we wouldn't be talking about them. We were never happy."

And on a personal level, any satisfaction in the goals? No.

Finally Paidi O Se. Looking wounded.

"We never got going, we were hoping towards the end, just hoping. We introduced Mike Frank hoping we might slip a goal. It wasn't going to happen.

"We are disappointed today was a day that shows the breaks. We have no excuses. Cork were out for every breaking ball, picked them all up. They worked hard."

Parting regret:

"Three points ahead at half time and we didn't manage to get it back up the field. The goal they got, the second goal, I thought we were in the shake-up, there was a few points left in us but . . ."