FORGET your grace and beauty for a moment. Hurling is a dog eat dog world Yesterday the two teams with the most poignant hard luck stories in the country clashed in Croke Park. One just had, to be swept home on a river of tears.

Wexford have known their hurling sorrows. Too many bad days meshed in the memory for them to glance back more than once at a buckled Limerick team. Yesterday in the late afternoon sunshine Wexford exorcised a terrace worth of ghosts. Hurling days have seldom been sweeter.

George O'Connor, who won an Oireachtas medal the first time he played in this old ground, crowned his career with an All Ireland. Billy Byrne has toiled for almost as long. Sentiment and hurling demanded that he get a run in the final quarter yesterday. When they fought their way in from the Croke Park turf yesterday Tony Doran, an old icon, was there to greet them.

"It's about hunger, determination and guts," said George's brother John, "and today guts won it."

Hunger. Determination. Guts. Much else besides.

"We've never been so relaxed," said Gary Laffan reflecting on the climax to a debut season. "Relaxed and focussed. We worked on relaxation all year. We were on amber until the whistle blew today."

Yes relaxation. "That's a grand dress you have on," Larry O'Gorman is alleged to have confided to the President as she made her rounds. It's not known if phone numbers were exchanged.

Hunger. Determination. Guts. Relaxation. Focus. More.

"You'd get the old lump in your throat," said protocol expert Larry O'Gorman, "just listening to Sean Flood say the few words this morning.

"Sean told us what it meant for him not to be playing in an All Ireland. It made you think how lucky you were. We went out there and we won it for Sean."

History is never far from hurling talk. Sean Flood's family is soaked in it. Tim, his father, played on the great Wexford teams of the 60s. His uncle is the legendary Hopper McGrath.

Wexford has its aristocracy and its scions too.

Hunger. Determination. Guts. Relaxation. Focus. Emotion and 182 training sessions.

"We bust our guts all through the winter," said Liam Griffin. "We worked so hard."

Liam Griffin. Yes, add Liam Griffin to that list.

Hunger, determination and Liam Griffin. The one component of Wexford's success which every player singled out as the essential difference between winning and losing. Griffin radiated a passion for hurling which is a motivation in itself.

"It was like going back into the past in Wexford for us," he said breathlessly; a man with two hours of talk on his mind but just to minutes of time in which to deliver it.

"To be in Wexford, it was incredible. All the children outside their houses, the innocent declarations around the place. Purple paper in one window, gold in the other. So innocent, so fabulous and so beautiful. Isn't that just what it's all about for a rural people like us."

Indeed. Yesterday in Croke Park was the essence of what it is all about. The greatest game in the world, played out to a finish that stole our breath away. A victory untainted by drugs, money or cheating. A day for romantics.

"That should give heart to everybody," said Liam Griffin for whom no romance is daring enough. "We need to expand the brotherhood of hurling. Clare and Wexford two years in a row. It has to give other places heart."

Limerick need no lessons about heart or determination. They will look back on yesterday and wonder if they played beneath themselves or played as well as they were allowed to. Then they'll put it behind them and regroup for another crack at the Holy Grail. With just one player the wrong side of 30, the future can still be theirs.

For a team which has won two out of the last three Munster championships credit has been grudgingly drip fed to them by the ancient regime of hurling snobs. They gave us some of the greatest moments of a thrilling season. They deserve, better than the insult of faint praise.

Yesterday however Croke Park was no place for losers. Limerick know the routine by now. A desultory three cheers ring out as the beaten players shower silently. Not long later the sound of cheering and whooping comes echoing down the corridor. Time to board the bus and be with your own.

"The shooting in the second half was appalling. We had atrocious wides. They got the breaks I must say. We had six or eight scoreable chances. The extra man can be more of a disadvantage in our game. Wexford were crisp and hungry and very physical on the ball," said Tom Ryan, the Limerick manager.

"They won a lot of high ball very cleanly. Maybe another day, maybe another day."

Always another day.