Popular opinion is that both teams took something out of the Munster final. Tipperary, it is reasoned, could not afford to lose a second successive provincial final and still keep morale intact for the All-Ireland series. Limerick on the other hand have shown such improvement this year that the prospect of playing in an All-Ireland quarter-final gives them further opportunity to progress.

By and large Munster's beaten finalists have not done quite as well under the current championship format as their Leinster counterparts - Offaly in three of the four years to date. Opinions differ as to the value of the system to teams. Tipperary's reaction to winning last Sunday emphasised that the county would have regarded defeat as a disaster.

One reason for this outlook was that the team found it difficult to recover from last year's defeat by Cork. As a result they were unable to regroup for the All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway. For other teams the quarter-final represents a chance to apply lessons learned in defeat.

Ironically, the county that managed this most successfully was Tipperary in 1997. After a comprehensive defeat by Clare in that year's Munster final, then manager Len Gaynor and his selectors changed the team sufficiently effectively to beat then All-Ireland champions Wexford in the All-Ireland semi-final. Colm Bonnar, a Waterford selector in the past two years, was one of the most experienced players on that team and he remembers the situation quite clearly.

"We were delighted to get a second chance. Clare should have beaten us out of sight in the Munster final. We got the easier draw against Down up in Clones. This was an overnight trip and I remember we were all able to talk together as a team and concentrate on an All-Ireland semi-final. We were saying that no one had beaten Tipp in championship by more than two or three points in recent years.

"We had a League match against Dublin just after we lost the Munster final and that allowed us to relaunch ourselves and give a run to some new players because we realised changes were needed. Unfortunately the League semi-final came after we played Wexford and we put out a second team against Galway. It wasn't great to throw away a match like that but the All-Ireland was coming up and we couldn't take a chance with injuries."

Unlike this year's Tipperary team, the side four years ago had been successful at provincial level and didn't feel under the same pressure to win the Munster title.

"From my point of view," says Bonnar, "I already had five Munster medals and to be honest another one wouldn't have made a huge difference. It wouldn't have bothered me that much if we'd won an All-Ireland without winning the Munster and you can be sure that the Munster medal would have counted for little enough in Clare if we'd beaten them in the All-Ireland final.

"When people look back at a career, they count the All-Irelands. People would say about me that I had two All-Irelands but would hardly ever mention my Munster medals. It's great as a springboard to the All-Ireland but once there was another way, you wouldn't turn it down."

Tony Considine was a selector with Ger Loughnane when Clare won two All-Irelands. He feels that the county's "back-door" experience was essentially negative. "We found defeat in the Munster final (against Cork) devastating. The minute the game was over, you didn't want to talk about it, there was an unreal feeling.

"In our quarter-final against Galway the first day, we drew when we should have been beaten out the gate. Back door or no back door, there's only one way to win a championship and that's by winning everything. After the Munster final in '99, I remember just wishing the season was over."

He believes that Offaly's All-Ireland win in 1998 will go down as a very rare instance of beaten provincial finalists winning the All-Ireland. "That was special because Offaly were a special team but they also had a management set-up and the way things fell for them they got their training done in matches.

"I remember after Offaly beat us in Thurles I was below in the Anner (hotel) talking to Eddie Keher and he said he was commiserating with me. I said to him, 'it's yourselves that'll have the problem now'.

"Because Kilkenny had spent weeks preparing to play Clare and now suddenly it was Offaly they had to face. They'd two weeks to get used to playing different opposition."

Considine and Bonnar agree that Limerick have a good chance in this year's quarter-final. According to Considine, "they'll be fiercely disappointed but have achieved a lot this year and can still go for it". Bonnar believes that their improvement has been significant.

"They've got better and better. The games are helping Limerick. In Waterford we wouldn't have just been looking at the Munster final if we'd got there but at the opportunity to stay together for another four weeks.

" They'll improve and are going to be a threat."