At the end of a truly memorable hurling season, and before the autumn draws in on us all, a few points remain to be mentioned and below is the clearing house.

(1) Despite their deeply impressive affirmation of being the best team in the country, Clare may consider that perhaps the most important thing about last Sunday was that their minors won. After Offaly's breakthrough in 1981, coach Diarmuid Healy addressed the multitudes in Birr and Tullamore and told them that under-age hurling was now the most important thing in the county.

In the words of team captain, Padraig Horan, "a lot of parents went away that night determined that their children would hurl."

By the end of the decade, Offaly had won three minor All-Ireland titles and established the makings of the next generation of senior champions.

A word of caution though: Wexford achieved a minor and senior double in 1968 but were waiting until last year before regaining either.

(2) From a position two years ago when they were underdogs in virtually every match they played, Clare took this year's title leading from the front, confident in their ability to win every match. Instead of romantic tilters at windmills, they had become a monolithic force as untroubled by tradition as they were by self-doubt.

(3) Tipperary showed that they had been slighted by dismissive assessments of their potential. After a Munster final that had left them shaken and without plausible prospects, they recovered and were within a puck of becoming the first All-Ireland champions to have lost a match en route.

In time, they will have been liberated from the preposterous shorthand of "the back door." Tipperary were the second best side in the country this year and proved it on Sunday. The All-Ireland is a title, a knockout competition; it does not necessarily identify the best team in the country as hardly any teams are immune against a bad day, if an intrinsically inferior opposition has a good one.

This year, the All-Ireland has gone to the best team in the country but it might as easily have not. The experimental system might not survive but there will be no reversion to the old format and that will be for the best.

(4) In 1995, Clare burst joyfully on the scene and didn't bother themselves that their achievements had been so unexpected. This year, there were signs that the team's management was relying more on nursing grievance than on celebrating their unarguable status as the best team in the country.

This is ironic because two years ago, I had reason to make a cautionary comparison between Offaly and Clare after the Leinster and Munster finals. Offaly had won an exhilarating All-Ireland title the previous year and were media darlings on account of their classical forward play.

In July 1995, they gave an awesome demonstration of their powers by demolishing Kilkenny in what was nonetheless a most entertaining Leinster final. Sadly, nothing would do them at this juncture but to wave the O'Keeffe Cup gloatingly and decry the manner in which they had been written off - a demonstrable nonsense.

Clare on the other hand had come from nowhere with large numbers of people openly doubting their ability and capacity to deliver on any big day. If anyone wanted to crow about being undervalued, Clare had the justification in spades. But instead, they were gracious and through his passionately eloquent expression of the county's almost mystical attachment to the game, Ger Loughnane became one of the most powerful advocates of hurling in modern times.

In the end, the positive motivation of Clare was more potent than Offaly's desire to take offence and turn in on themselves.

This year, however, whether by accident or design, Ger Loughnane has spent a lot of time seeking out grievance and using it as a motivational tool - an outdated one at a stage when Clare are a power in modern hurling.

Clare are a great team and will be great in the history books. Loughnane will be regarded as an inspiration to the game as well as to his county.

This is a matter for celebration and all of it was possible without getting upset over headlines in the Examiner, impugning the integrity of one of the game's most honourable journalists, crossing swords publicly with another county's PRO, exploiting the dressing room confidences of a former colleague and belligerently upbraiding a respected hurling commentator on live television.

Much of this has been dissonant for the very reason that it was so out of character for the county which has always been open, accessible and one of the most articulate bunches you could meet.

As recently as 10 days before the All-Ireland, Loughnane gave a scintillating performance, zipping through a miscellany of issues concerning the modern game.

It will be important that the county's potential be maximised and devising exaggerated chips on the shoulder is not the best way of doing so with a self-contained team which has demonstrated the collective mental strength to rise to virtually any challenge that arises on the inter-county front.

Derry footballers imploded against an agitated background of "not receiving enough credit" for their 1993 All-Ireland. The only motivation that works in the long-term is one that encourages good teams to become great teams and great teams to become legendary - for that sake alone, not because some imagined hurling constituency is looking down its nose at them.

(5) The All-Ireland of 1961 has become a template of sorts for recent hurling finals. Last year was the first final since then, during which a man was sent off. Sunday was the first in 36 years to be won by a team not scoring a goal and - most surprisingly - the first won by a single point.

(6) An article this day last week stated that neither Smith-O'Briens in Killaloe nor the Ballina club across the river had produced big names on the inter-county front. This was to ignore Martin McKeogh, who moved to O'Callaghan's Mills, whose two goals provided the margin of victory between Clare and Kilkenny in the NHL final of 1978, and also the recently deceased John McCarthy. Thanks for this clarification to both Gerry McLaughlin from Killaloe and Ollie Byrnes, whose history of Clare hurling has been so productively pillaged. (7) Finally, a word for referee Dickie Murphy. The game was widely believed to have the potential for unpleasantness. Although the players deserve recognition for (largely) going about their business in a well-behaved manner, the presence of such a competent law-giver at the very least helped create the right environment.