Eamon O’Shea lopes towards the Tipp dressing room, his bearing light. When Clare cleaned their clock in Thurles back

in March, he brushed off any suggestion he or his team were under pressure.

Now a league final beckons, and those who fretted on his behalf back then might be feeling they jumped the gun.

“Who would have thought five weeks ago that we’d be in a league final? I was happy coming into the game, I was really relaxed. I knew we’d do something – I didn’t know we’d win it. But I knew we’d be good-ish, just from the way we’ve been playing and what we’ve been doing.

“I thought an improved performance was a possibility. But a league final? I don’t know. Let’s be frank – we were lucky to get out of the league because of the three-point [win against Dublin]. But I did, as far as you can know, I did expect improvement because of the spirit within the team.”

Much was discussed of his side’s susceptibility to goals. Four minutes gone, Cathal McInerney has one in the net.

“You’re thinking, ‘I hope another one doesn’t go in.’ I knew we were set up well. I knew we had the right set-up in there and that we wouldn’t concede many goals. “

As for Davy Fitz, the league offered up enough nourishment to be going on with. His team weren’t bouncing off the ground yesterday but he has been saying for months there was a hangover in the post.

“Tipp definitely had a bit more hunger. I thought we battled away, we scored 2-16, 2-17, something in that bracket. We had 14 wides, so we did. There is definitely areas we have to work on. We won’t be in the top three or four with a performance like that in the championship. We know that.

“I’m happy. I’d visions that we’d be fighting relegation. That’s being straight with you. We had to give them an extra number of weeks off. You could see towards the end today that they wanted to go but they just couldn’t find the gears.”