These men can reach speeds of 100 m.p.h., break hearts at 70 yards, level counties in 60 seconds . . . they can do pretty much anything but get you a ticket for the final on Sunday.

There's a silent revolution going on among hurling followers in Tipperary over their unworthy ticket allocation, just one-tenth of the total capacity of Croke Park. Their obsession this week is not how John Leahy might rack up an early goal, but how they can actually see him in the flesh.

Asking buffs to watch the game on television is like asking an alcoholic to settle for a fizzy orange. This is deprivation on a grand scale; obsession with the game has turned to depression at the lack of tickets. The players get just six tickets each, so one can only hope they are the progeny of small families. But if they wrestle with the agony of deciding who should benefit from their modest ticket largesse, one can only envy them their power, on All-Ireland day, to raise or lower the spirit of thousands. Who would not swap places with one of them, just to feel the tension that clasps the stomach in its burning grip; to listen to the dull ear-splitting boom of adulation as the teams sprint from the shadowy tunnel; to bask in the esprit de corps that shores up spirits in winter drill; to revel in days that will never come quite like this again.

Yes, they are to be envied, the boys who play Croke Park on Sunday, just like the girls who played it last weekend, with a far smaller audience, but as great a passion.

The aristocrats of Munster hurling have never been burdened with a heavy sense of noblesse oblige. No, merci. Clare cherishes a mere three All-Ireland senior hurling titles. Tipperary has 24 and is, like a plump Oliver Twist, in need of more. Besides, it's not as though Tipp have had it easy in 1997, having to beat the champions of Leinster and Ulster to find themselves back where they started from, facing Clare.

There had never been between Tipp and Clare the kind of enmity that exists between Tipp and Cork. There has been need for none. Tipp did much of the winning and Clare did much of the losing and that arrangement suited the aristocrats.

All is fair in love and war and this is war. Everybody in Tipp has forgotten how Brian Boru's grandson led the O'Briens from Clare across the Shannon to assist their brethren clans in North Tipperary in ousting the Normans, principally the Butlers. It's a pity. Today North Tipperary is alive with lore of a new needle between these adjoining counties. There are reports of how Clare supporters passing home through Nenagh mouthed mad obscenities at the locals.

Over on the Shannon, where Ballina sits on the Tipp side across the bridge from Killaloe, Tipp devotees have put up the brazen slogan, "Spanner In the Banner". The Killaloe dudes have responded with a similar sign, "Keep The Back Door Closed", a cruel reference to the fact that Tipperary were losers in the Munster final but, under new rules, find themselves in the All-Ireland.

From tomorrow onwards, Clare supporters travelling to Dublin must pass through a Tipperary bedecked with bunting and banners and expressions of combat. It is enemy territory. May the road rise to meet them; may the best team win.