LockerRoom/Tom Humphries:  The problem with writing about Clare and Waterford in the generally approving manner which follows is that disgruntled Tipperary people always write in. The more strident among the disgruntled usually correspond in crayon.

When it comes to hurling, even at the best of times, Tipperary people are more often disgruntled than they are gruntled. They can win an All-Ireland and complain that the wing backs will never do.

Thus the slightest suggestion that a person could enjoy the spectacle of two non-aristocratic counties playing hurling tends to draw down upon the writer rabid denunciations and wild accusations of anti-Tipperary bias.

There'll be relatively swift letters of condemnation posted in from Cork and Kilkenny, too, but Tipp are always the first to pull across the ankles with accusations of bias. That's the problem with the aristocracy: they don't just expect to dine like gentry, they expect us to enjoy the spectacle.

So straight up I confess it. I am against Tipperary to the point of lunacy. I am also foamy-mouthed in my hatred of Cork. I can scarcely contain myself when it comes to discussing my plans to eradicate Kilkenny. There, it's done. I've said it.

Nothing against the poor and seldom gruntled people of these places (some of my best friends are paranoid hurling snobs, etc), just against the concept of them, the whole idea of three counties owning hurling, the notion that hurling is in peril if the blue-bloods are struggling.

I can't help it. I love novelty. I love seeing counties come to Croke Park and actually get a kick out of the experience. All the jaded success of the big three kills hurling.

I grew up in the 1970s and thought every year would be like 1973 when Limerick burst out from the tyranny of Munster. I sat through the seemingly endless dawn of Clare hurling in 1976 and 1977 and watched it go dark again before there'd been any daytime sun to enjoy.

Honestly, I know it was hard times in the self-proclaimed "home of hurling", but the most joy we had was wondering what way Tipp would contrive to go out of the championship each year. If that seems harsh, well, try growing up in Dublin and waiting for the hurling gods to shine on you. Back in the 1970s we used to think that the best reason to hope to see Tipp in another All-Ireland final was so that Dublin would have the chance to sort them out for 1961.

Well, you dream, don't you? It's been over 60 years for Dublin now. Tipperary weren't having a famine, they were just having a break between meals.

So days like the Galway breakthrough and the Offaly insurrection, they were the days that lodged in the memory. And days like yesterday when Clare and Waterford came to Croke Park with five All-Ireland titles between them. Who wouldn't be rooting for the craturs?

We wandered down to Croker yesterday and there was genuine bafflement as to who would win. The opinion was ventured that the Clare forwards couldn't be as bad again as they were the last day. How many ships have run aground on that particular reef? Or could Waterford be as hot as they were in the Munster final? For seven minutes they could anyway.

Has any team come to Croke Park and got off to as good a start as Waterford? Three points in four minutes. Six points in eight minutes. Seven points in 11 minutes. Some of them could have balanced the sliotar on their nose and not been punished, so sweetly were things falling for them. And then they left it behind.

In the Clare dressing-room afterwards they were still rubbing their eyes and wondering how it was that they had been in here 35 minutes ago with a one-point lead. Was it a tactic to throw Cyril Lyons? He must have spent the first half rehearsing his reading of the riot act. Then his team come in a point up. Collectively all they could do was shrug.

In the second half, Waterford lost it mentally. Clare's will was greater, and that will didn't reside in any place as surely as it did beneath the red helmet at full back.

There have been times in the last few years when Clare have been losing games to Tipp that you wondered would you ever see Brian Lohan again in Croke Park on a big day. Yesterday he came back and resumed ownership of the place.

"What can you say about him," said James O'Connor afterwards. "He's a legend. He has a determination like nobody I've ever seen, and when you see him coming out with the red helmet and the ball in his hand it lifts the crowd, it lifts the team. At times, he dragged us through it."

Lohan's dominance at the back was a cypher for what Clare did in the second half. Eoin Kelly, who had three points to his credit while people were still sitting down after the national anthem, was shackled, and bar one point he was gifted, it turned out not to be the game of his life after all. The McGraths had similar trips to anonymity.

And so the final shapes up as a modern classic. Blue-bloods versus peasants. Tipp and Kilkenny have likeable young teams, and even if they don't thrive they will go through their careers picking up the odd All-Ireland here, the odd one there.

Specifically, that's what they are bred for. That's what's expected of them. Wait till next week. Lots of Kilkenny people will scarcely be able to stir themselves out the door to go to Croke Park. When they won the Leinster title it seemed like such a hassle for them to have to lift that big cup and bring it all the way home.

Tipp will be more enthusiastic, but if they lose poor Nicky English will hear the whispers behind his back and everything he has achieved will be forgotten.

I tell you, these people are never happy unless it's a five-in-a-row.

The rest of us are bred and conditioned to support the little guys. It will be good to see Clare get another shot at creating their own tradition. The wins of 1995 and 1997 and the epic year of 1998 never really produced the generation of good young teams they should have.

But they'll come, and Clare might eventually be blue-bloods themselves.

And Dublin? Give it five years and if you're looking for the home of hurling you'll be starting from Donnycarney and working from there.