These corridors and dressing-rooms could tell some tales. They've seen every brand of ecstasy and every variety of agony. They've absorbed rows and harsh words and crazy half-time talks, they've soaked up good times and bad times. And that was just yesterday.

Waterford are in the house. Whooping and hollering and hugging. Days like these are rare and blessed. The wonder of that which is seldom. Dan Shanahan stands with his hands on his hips, a man this championship summer has hauled to stardom - 6-4 in the championship to date, he is the totem of Waterford's excellence.

"It's a fantastic feeling," he says. "We don't win these very often and when John Mullane was gone after five minutes of the second half I thought it was tit-for-tat. I thought his man made a meal of it, he wasn't long getting up after it. After that we worked so hard in the forwards. And the backs, they were brilliant when they needed to be."

It was that sort of day for Waterford. No point letting the praise drip onto one or two blessed foreheads. Better to hose them all down with it. When Mullane was asked to walk the plank five minutes into the second half, most neutral observers shrugged their shoulders, put their hands in their pockets and waited for the geyser of scores that Cork would surely throw up. Never happened.

By then Shanahan had already had his moments of wonder. Three fine points and then a goal from the top drawer as he sprung from the earth to pluck a ball on the edge of the Cork square, the same movement seeing him turn and slam a short-stick shot to the net.

"The wind was there," he said, "if a half back hits it you know it mightn't go all the way. You have to be there to get it when you take a chance. I hope now they're not expecting too much out of me." He laughs.

Paul Flynn lay back against the opposite wall. "Ye didn't want to talk to me the last day boys," he has just said as he flew down the corridor. He laughed but some of the edge in this Waterford team was evident in the words. Many other things were less clear.

"I didn't believe it was over that fast," he says. "Diarmuid O'Sullivan passed me and he was going up the field and they were shouting at him to get back and he said there's only two minutes left, I didn't realise. It flew. I suppose Cork with 15, us with 14; they'll say Cork lost it but we knuckled down when we had to.

"The first half was poor if you look at it but, it's a horrible thing to say, but John, when he got sent off, gave us that bit of motivation, the kick in the backside we needed to up it a bit."

A poor first half? What has Paul Flynn been raised on? Hard to say but when Mullane got sent off it was Flynn who upped his game most significantly, finishing with 1-7 and, in the nature of the man, he combined some extraordinary misses with the most sublime scores.

"I had two bad misses yeah, I thought, well we needed to score every chance we got and I thought they might cost us but thank God they didn't. If you shoot you're going to miss. It's great. Maybe people at home turned off the tellies."

That defiance in the words again. This Waterford team have caught some of it. What's different you ask. "Nothing," he says. "No difference this year. No difference. People outside call us inconsistent but three Munster finals in a row, one defeat in nine Munster games under Justin (McCarthy)."

But the big performances are coming together now. Clare. Tipp. Cork. He reflects: "It's a hurling match. That's all. Before we got caught up in the occasion. It's hard work. It's not the game I played as an 18-year-old. It's a tough game, fast and physical. It took us a few years to cop on to that but we're doing okay.

"There was a big wind there today and it was probably easier to play into it in the forwards because of the room, as you saw with Joe Deane and Brian Corcoran in the first half. It's great, what can you say."

At which point Dan Shanahan reaches in and ruffles Flynn's head, saying: "My buddy. Answered a few critics today."

Just time for one more before the celebrations engulf us all. The 35-five-yard free to the net, did you go for it? "You tell me!" he says with a grin. Then he vanishes.

Down the corridor with half of Waterford swinging from him comes Ken McGrath. Sweet dreams are made of this.

"Beating Cork in a Munster final, it's something we'll never forget," he says. "We went out this year to get past Munster. We'll be giving that a go now. Down to 14 men, sometimes it helps. We got down to that and we dug. I don't know where we got it from. It was brilliant.

"After a few hammerings by Cork especially back in the '80s, to beat them is great."

The 1980s. Waterford seemed as far off it as anyone. In 1982 they lost to Cork by 31 points. A year later lost to them by 19 points. In 1986 they lost to them by 21 points. All in the race memory. Yesterday they copper-fastened a trend. Eyeball-to-eyeball with the big guys. Never flinching.

In the end McGrath epitomised the best they had. Striking beautifully, reading the game perfectly and, in the final moments, making a wonderful catch to prompt the full-time whistle.

"Other days it would drop off me fingers," he says. "I was standing behind. I had the advantage going for it. That's better after all the criticisms about bottle and everything. That's easily our most satisfying day."

Ben O'Connor came into the corridor and spoke softly. The summer looks different now.

"They'd a man sent off and fair play they lifted it," he conceded. "Having a man sent off nearly always works in your favour. You put your shoulder into it. We probably took it a bit handy.

"There's no easy round now in the back door. Like a mini All-Ireland every time we go out from now on."