GAELIC GAMES:The greatest game in the world. In Croke Park yesterday, when the hurling was done and the whistle was blown, we came back to the real world only slowly. And reluctantly. Our legs were weak, our hands still trembled and our minds were drained. For a minute or two we could only shake our heads and utter oaths larded with wonder.

Waterford lay defeated on the grass below. The story of their epic defiance finished here. A decade of trying, season after season of blood, sweat and tears, and it stopped here. They got everything out of themselves and at their peak and for the fifth time in this team's existence they failed at the All-Ireland semi-final stage.

The sense of their heartbreak was like a cloudburst. Reeling from the shocking ferocity of Limerick's hunger, Waterford fell 10 points behind in the opening half and they spent the rest of the day clawing at the lip of their own grave.

Five Limerick goals were the shovel blows which kept knocking them back into the dirt.

The poignance was almost unbearable. Waterford had done so much work to get to this final, poured so much of themselves into this season, that there was a feeling when they overcame Cork eight days ago of the stars being aligned. And Waterford would be forgiven if in their mind's eye they looked over at Limerick and pictured Kilkenny in the final. That's what the rest of us did.

But before the ball was thrown in Limerick were piling into Waterford's daydreams, reminding them of the old saw that you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.

Limerick! A side who didn't so much exit the championship last year as drain out of it after a 17-point beating in Ennis. Limerick, the fall guys in almost every hurling breakthrough for 30 years. Limerick, whose juvenile delinquency meant they hadn't won a serious championship match for most of this century. When it ended, Limerick held aloft the golden ticket.

What a day! Shattering. Tingling. Draining. It was tragedy and it was a love story. It was cruel and it was redemptive. Waterford were the people's underdogs, the side whose final coronation it was universally agreed would be good for the hurling nation.

Now they are footnotes and yet another September moon rises to find Waterford grieving. When Brian Begley seized the ball for one last heartbreaking time down on the sward and scored the fifth Limerick goal, a great mass of hands were clapped over open mouths and, for a moment, looking about the stands, it seemed as if we were about to drown in a tsunami of tears.

But Waterford people have been jilted so many times before, and this time they just stood up, shook their heads, folded their programmes and made for the exits. Enough. Enough.

So the stars weren't aligned. Or hurling yet again proved the hard sporting maxim that "deserve" is a redundant word. Shakespeare, the quote-friendly corner back with Stratford-upon-Avon's junior side, used to argue that it was an "excellent foppery of the world that, when we are sick in fortune - often the surfeit of our own behaviour - we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars".

Waterford are beyond that though. Flinty realism marked the end of their dream.

"The ultimate goal was our aim," said Justin McCarthy, standing outside the morgue of a dressing-room his players sat silently in.

"But look at Limerick. You can't fault them. They were outstanding the way they took the scores. They came in the hard way too. They had problems and ups and downs. That's no good for us though. We are out."

Justin was grey and drawn, but Richie Bennis's face was the sun we haven't seen all summer. If your blood has been poisoned by cynicism, the Limerick manager's happiness has been a ready-made transfusion. Ah! He gambolled about the grass like a young man born again in a faith that had never really left him. He embraced every green jersey he could find and the light purity of his joy was a perfect counterbalance to the depths of Waterford's grief.

"My reaction is . . . Unbelievable! We wanted to get to the All-Ireland semi-final, and when we got here we got greedy and wanted to win it. And we won't stop being greedy now we are into a final!"

September, or that part of September's script which still offers romance, belongs to Limerick. Waterford may have been the nation's darlings, Limerick are the roughnecks we gave up on years ago but they are still standing.

They are summed up by the words of their greatest servant of this era. Ollie Moran has been with Limerick through thin and thin, bad days and worse. This summer he has been a force of nature as they dragged themselves through the championship.

He stood in the corridor under the Hogan Stand, his nose busted, a wodge of cotton wool staunching the blood, and his sentiment reminded us of the romance that still lights up this championship.

"I never felt that Limerick hurling, that we could be where we are. That's being straight out. I've been in a lot of Limerick dressing-rooms where there was no self-belief or heart. Lots lacking. I don't know where this has come from. It has come from nowhere."

He shook his head an grinned.

"Richie Bennis hasn't studied psychology, but he has done what a lot of people couldn't do, what a lot of people thought could never be done with that bunch of players. It's him ye should be talking to really. To be 17 points down last year - and lucky to be 17 points at that - twas a very dark day in Limerick hurling. A lot of guys alluded to that this year, you were holding your head in shame, you were embarrassed to say you hurled for Limerick. It has been a rollercoaster since.

"We've got a run of luck, it is phenomenal to come from where we have come from!"

The story of the hurling summer changed yesterday. It was momentous, heartbreaking and uplifting. Limerick are the new matinee idols.