CHAMPIONSHIP 2010:Tipperary were all too aware Kilkenny were not out of it until Lar Corbett's third goal

THERE IS nothing quite like that decisive, winning surge when it becomes clear the underdogs are going to win, and win big. Last weekend’s hurling final didn’t have much luck with the weather but there’s a timeless quality about watching a packed Croke Park steaming with tension in the September drizzle.

Conditions played a role in preventing the match from attaining classic status but it was gripping to watch a side that has, without hyperbole, come to be regarded as possibly the best in the history of Gaelic games gradually and inexorably reach the end of the line – and conversely to be present as a team invested with such high hopes because of their under-age pedigree and also the impact they made last year deliver on the most demanding of expectations.

The baton is passed on or the lines on the graph cross, or whatever transitional metaphor you prefer, but it doesn’t happen neatly in 70 minutes.

On Sunday Kilkenny went from the threshold of history at 3.30 to simply history by five o’clock but what happened in between was an absorbing process that seemed too complicated to be resolved in so short a space of time. At some stage a tipping point is reached and you can’t always tell even in retrospect what it was.

Henry Shefflin’s injury took place 13 minutes into the match. In some place in their hearts his Kilkenny team-mates must have been steeled to the prospect of losing him but it was still alien territory. Losing him when the opposition had no chance of exploiting the misfortune – the 2007 final and last month’s semi-final – is one thing but when a match is just out of its (for Kilkenny, worrying) prologue is entirely different.

What difference would a fully-fit Shefflin have made? Who knows? But those sort of events, like sendings off, can disrupt the opposition as well as the team affected and if anything Tipp looked more disoriented as the first half wore on, so it wasn’t immediately or conclusively identifiable as a game changer.

At half-time it was open to Tipperary to believe they had hurled rather a lot for their one-point lead or to focus instead on their obvious competitiveness, the fact Kilkenny hadn’t blown them off the field in the first half as had happened to half of the other finalists in the previous four years.

It wasn’t immediately clear which belief burned more brightly in the breasts of the challengers.

It’s hard to do any number of things in an All-Ireland final but to recover from a seven-point fusillade in the space of three minutes must rank as among the most daunting. It’s normally a Kilkenny knack, the rapid flurry of blows that opens up space between the contestants and which not only makes the task of winning materially more difficult, but also undermines confidence in the ability to do so.

But this time, to use another sporting analogy, it was Tipperary who made the break as surely as a cyclist, who suddenly breaks the steady rhythm of a close race to sprint into a commanding lead.

These are exhilarating moments in a big match when it looks as if a decisive move has been made by the underdog. Had it been Kilkenny, everyone would have mentally closed the book on the final even with 25 minutes to go.

Yet still the match was balanced because Kilkenny refused at that stage to acknowledge it was beyond them. Five years ago during the county’s previous championship defeat, Galway riddled them with goals and still they couldn’t be counted out until the final bell.

Having conceded 5-18 Kilkenny had put up 4-18 by the end and despite trailing by 11 with just 13 minutes left, were closing like an express train in the final minutes. So forgive Tipp supporters in the crowd for feeling that a seven-point lead in the 44th minute was insufficient cause for celebration.

What the goals did achieve, however, was to fuel both the crowd’s and players’ belief that the match was going in the right direction. It may be tempting to think that those scores ended the contest but they didn’t because the margin as late as the 59th minute was down to three.

The stadium didn’t fully rise to the reality of what was happening until the scoring sequence of the final 10 minutes. Even when Lar Corbett shot his third goal in injury-time manager Liam Sheedy was still making “calm down” gestures as if the prize was still vulnerable to lapses in concentration.

The late, relentless marksmanship was reminiscent of a number of other breakthrough victories: Clare rattling off scores uninhibitedly to win a first Munster in 63 years; Wexford in the 1996 Leinster final doing the same to Offaly; Waterford against Tipperary in 2002: where a new dispensation comes almost giddily into being amid the tumult of each successive score.

Tipperary’s victory is reward for hard work, at under-age level in developing some great talent and at senior level in successfully introducing that talent and so forging a serious presence at the top of the game. Teams pay their dues to achieve success.

For older players, especially Corbett, Brendan Cummins and captain Eoin Kelly, who had experienced the good times and continued to contribute as the self-assurance of the 2001 All-Ireland success gave way to the status of also-rans in a surprisingly quick transformation, the satisfaction of once more getting to the mountain top must be immense.

I can remember Down players in 1994 saying their second All-Ireland was so much sweeter than the first because 1991 had passed them by in a riot of jubilation before they really had time to savour the achievement, and that there is more intense gratitude at getting back something treasured after it has been lost.

Tipperary are now expected to be a force with Kilkenny, whose own supply line of talent ensures they won’t be going anywhere for long, but that doesn’t always work out either.

The 2001 team wasn’t old but never came again. The Dublin footballers of 1983, similarly built on success at under-age level, and driven by veterans of the county’s 1970s heyday, took advantage of the Kerry hiatus of the time but as a collective they didn’t manage to win another All-Ireland, instead losing twice as Kerry carved out a three-in-a-row postscript.

Yet Tipperary shouldn’t be worrying about how many more Liam MacCarthy Cups this team can accumulate. The achievement is now. Next year there may be different champions so it’s ephemeral in one way but in another it has the permanence of the roll of honour: 2010 – Tipperary’s 26th.

Celebrate it. The next one is never guaranteed.