By the time the post-match interview arrangements are rescued from chaos by the intervention of a few sensible Clare people, the assembled media are in a frenzy. The farmers who own the field had decreed that there would be no grazing in the dressing room, no chewing it all over with the players.

So by the time the media bursts into the Clare dressing room through a side-door there is pandemonium. Women and children are trampled underfoot.

Jamesie O' Connor is standing there in his team-issue polo-shirt and his tracksuit bottoms and he looks as quietly pleased as an accountant who has just made the books balance. He has a calming effect on all and sundry. If you were looking for a match-winner yesterday Jamesie O'Connor would always have got the nomination.

"Jamesie would break your heart in training," said Anthony Daly afterwards. "Scores with ease off both sides."

"An epic ending," said Ger Loughnane, "with Jamesie O'Connor putting the ball over the bar."

"When the ball went to Jamesie for the last point," said Brian Lohan "everybody in the whole place knew it was over the bar."

It was a day of heroics but the path to greatness lies in the attention to detail. Jamesie ploughed his way through a turgid first half trying to work out a way of getting under the skin of the game.

"Personally," he says, "it was a very disappointing first half, the game was bypassing me and I couldn't get a touch on it.

"There weren't even any frees to take which might settle you down a bit. If anything though I've learned to be patient. In the second half of the game it opened up a bit and you'll always play yourself in to the game like that.

"Another factor is the fact that Croke Park is tighter than Munster pitches, games are more physical in Croke Park. They were more conscious of trying to hold the line, trying to deny our full-forward line space while we would be trying to keep their half-back line out and then try and turn and get them going backwards. It was physical particularly with the wind the way it was in the first half, the ball was very static and it was hard to win ball in those circumstances. It loosened in the second half. I just kept talking to myself, trying to work my way into it. In the end that's what happened."

That and a change of equipment. Anthony Daly had broken a beloved hurley of Jamesie's in training not long ago. These things don't hold up as concrete excuses but on days when the game is going away from you, the strange feel of the new plank in your hand can transmit itself to the brain.

"I broke my good hurley. Daly. Smashed it in training. I was using a hurley and I wasn't really happy with it and I was calling for a hurley, my spare hurley and it didn't get to me till half time and ah I don't know. Just one of those days I was a small bit tentative. Needed to just keep talking to myself. In the second half the ball broke and I got a few scores and it happened. The bottom line is that we won the match.

"I have four of them [hurleys] there but the one I had I used in the Munster final and it's one I had for a while. I got this new one and it was a beautiful stick and it did the business for me against Kilkenny. We were playing a practice game and Loughnane threw the ball in for the start. If he'd thrown it in properly it wouldn't have happened; he threw it over the midfielders' heads and Daly was there and I was a bit late and I spent the next five minutes muttering obscenities. Thankfully at the end of the day I was playing with one I was happy with."

At half time the dressing room had been eerily calm. Four points down in an All-Ireland final against the self-styled home of hurling.

Most teams would be floundering around in a lather of their own sweat. Jamesie knew what was coming "We came back out and Liam Doyle's point after half time was crucial. Really lifted the team. At 17 points to 12 we were cruising and I couldn't see us being beaten; then the two goals came and the game was turned on its head. "Again it just showed the character of the team. We kept our heads and Ollie got the most crucial score of the game, which was the one to level it."

Typical modesty. The man who had almost single-handedly turned the tide of the game in the second half by being the only truly reliable Clare forward, tossing bouquets to all and sundry. He's quietly reluctant to come to his part in the pig picture.

"My point?" he says when asked for the forensic details of his winning score. "Colin got a ball on the side and I called for it and players just can't hear each other out there. He saw me and went to pass it to me and someone got a touch of it and he flicked it to me and I had a bit of space and thankfully it sailed over."

Pressure shot?

"It was a pressure shot but they all are on a day like today. It was on my stronger side and I had a bit of time. As a team we have probably played better. The big thing was that when the questions were asked we were able to answer them."

As a forward was he surprised when he saw his counterpart Johnny Leahy tearing away at the other end of the field and blazing at the goal.

"Personally I always take my points. That answers that. He was probably the last man you'd want to see in that position. I was surprised he actually went for goal but I mean he took the responsibility and thankfully Fitzie was up to it. Hurling happens so fast and it's only afterwards you see what happened, one of the lads was probably getting in on top of him."

Jamesie stands there and speaks about it all as if he has had three or four years in which to pick up some perspective on the recently deceased game. He describes the dressing room and the preparation but amidst the detail the most telling fact about Jamesie's preparation is the fact that he only learned about the Clare minor's winning after the senior game had ended.

Somehow he cocoons himself and gets the concentration right. Perfection and glory are about small things done well.

"We worked incredibly hard for this," he says, deflecting the attention onto the team again. "Harder than in 1995. Hours in the gym, nights in Crusheen and Shannon, things which people don't see. We haven't had the time to take it all in yet. We're quite relaxed in here. Looking back it's good to have beaten Cork, Kilkenny, and Tipp twice in the one season. I suppose it's a great way to win it."

There are no high fives, no histrionics, nothing but the emphasis on doing things right. On a day which ranks among the greatest this Clare team has enjoyed, it was somehow fitting that the final punctuation mark should have been provided by the man who best embodies the quest for perfection.