What do we talk about when we talk about Tipperary and Clare in a league final? Shadow boxing or a rumble in the jungle? More the former than the latter if yesterday's game at Limerick was anything to go by.

It was lively stuff, but the boys tended to float like butterflies. We came away yearning for June 3rd when the stinging like bees bit begins.

Nothing but the same old story then in many respects, a league final which left us talking once more about the supremacy of championship over all other forms. Even the teams don't pretend anymore.

Tipperary won, of course, taking their 18th title in a match which offered nuggets of hope to both teams. Clare will be sustained by the fact that Tipp goalkeeper Brendan Cummins was man of the match, a fitting award in the light of the five clear goal chances the losers carved out.

Tipp will know that they competed where they had to, hauled back a deficit and strung together a necklace of shining scores to secure the game. Not a lot more could be asked. Sufficient unto the day etc. . . .

Funny how times have changed. Only 25,142 were interested enough to make the jaunt to watch the two teams who provided the most compelling rivalry of the nineties. The league has fallen a long way.

Back in the sideburned seventies, Clare's league titles were great emotional wrenchings which were supposed to joyously presage the good times to come.

Yesterday, neither team viewed the attainment of the secondary national title as a ticket to anything other than more hard work.

Nor was there any of the sizzling spite which has attended games between Clare and Tipp in recent years, just two teams with furrowed brows playing a little poker. In these changed times neither side has an ascendancy worth resenting.

None of which should detract from Tipp's achievement in skipping through this league season unbeaten.

The learning curve for Nicky English's young team has been as steep as this disjointed spring could have allowed and, if there was a distinct absence of champagne and high fives yesterday, it was just because league titles are no longer appropriate occasions for such things.

Tipp need only look back two years to appreciate how long league wins live in the memory.

All that matter for both sides is what happens when they meet in Cork on June 3rd. "That was a nice win for us today," said full back Phillip Maher, encapsulating the mood, "and we'll have a nice night, but it's back to training on Tuesday night".

The bright points have been plentiful for Tipp, though, and even yesterday hampered by a string of injuries there were reasons to be cheerful. The form of young Lar Corbett gave the most cause for rejoicing.

It would be easy and fashionable to dismiss the entire thing as a phoney war, but some of the themes which have run through the epic relationship between these counties in the past decade recurred yesterday.

John Leahy was big and irreducible for Tipp. Brian Lohan was thunderous for Clare.

Rather than rubbing each others noses in it, they made to plamas each other with respectful words afterwards.

The Tipperary dressing-room noted that Clare would find plenty of cause for good hope, Clare conceded the point, but felt Tipp had lots to be happy about, too.

"Clare are going to be a better team the next day," said Tipp forward Eddie Enright. "It's always nice to win, but there was only a few points in it today and that will mean nothing on June 3rd."

"It's kind of worrying if you look back," said Clare manager Cyril Lyons, "we created good chances in last year's Munster championship and didn't take them. We created good chances today and didn't take them."

They went their separate ways, the team buses turning at the signs that said: "To the Drawing Board". Nobody sang and nobody cried.

National League titles are like one-night stands - fun while they last but not something that grown-ups boast about.

As for respect the next morning? Respect is earned elsewhere.