Munster SH Final/Waterford v Cork: There are two Waterford teams - a woeful one and a masterly one. Keith Duggan wonders which one will turn up in Thurles

It is hard for Waterford fans to gauge what mood they should adapt when they set out for Thurles tomorrow morning. Since 1998, Waterford teams have been tantalising and infuriating the heartland in equal measure, but since the latter stages of this year's league, their form has been truly unreadable.

Castigated for flattering to deceive in their disappointing league final loss against Galway, they confounded - embarrassed - the academics of hurling that uniformly tipped them to fold a week later in the championship against Clare. Instead, they came out and machine-gunned their nemesis from the volatile 1998 series with a total of 3-21.

There was a new look to Waterford that day. The 1998 adventure, under Gerald McCarthy, was kick-started by a 0-21 to 2-12 win over Tipperary, a victory that was memorable for the outpouring of good-natured happiness.

Before that afternoon, Waterford had won only three championship games since the beginning of the decade, with Kerry the opponents in two of those games. The innocence of that time had been replaced by a more wolfish and extrovert attitude in the final quarter of this year's first championship test when they had reduced Clare to a wounded creature seeking cover.

Many observers found the sight of Waterford player's explicit celebrations disquieting, but no apologies were offered then or afterwards. It was as if they had become tired of upholding the county's reputation for good manners: for knowing its place.

That exhibition of faultless hurling and schadenfreude was back-boned by the meatier and in many ways more substantial claims they made for themselves against Tipperary. That 4-10 to 3-12 win places them at this moment, on the eve of their third Munster final in succession.

"The key moment against Tipperary was when Tommy Dunne got a point in the second half that looked to have set them up, Waterford didn't fold," says former Waterford manager Tony Mansfield. "There was real coolness and conviction in the response and it was the likes of young Phelan and Declan Prendergast and Michael Walsh that took us home in the end. Young fellas."

Although Mansfield was surprised by the totality of victory over Clare, he remembers being surprised at how stridently public opinion railed against Waterford in the days before the match. The loss of the league final jarred, but, despite that, Waterford had been consistent in the league - although Mansfield found the positioning of Eoin McGrath at corner back for the league final to be inexplicable.

Against Clare, Justin McCarthy's selection policy worked perfectly, with the controversial selection of the other McGrath, Ken, at centre back vindicating his persistence when general opinion declared it doomed.

Mansfield was in charge of Waterford when McGrath took his first tremulous steps and still remembers when he first saw him playing club on a grainy video in the mid-1990s.

When he joined the panel as "a big raw-boned young fella", Mansfield wanted to cotton him for as long as possible, but he played against Tipperary in the Munster championship 1-11 to 1-14 loss. Since then, he has been at the heart of Waterford's best and worst afternoons. Full forward in the 2002 Munster final win against Tipperary, he has been a revelation at number six two summers later.

"He has the pace and range to move across the line as well and he likes to express himself, like the first-time hurling. He has the confidence to try things and that communicates the same message across the line. Whether it becomes his permanent home is something only Justin McCarthy knows. Maybe things will be clearer after Cork."

As well as revamping his lines, McCarthy has replaced long-serving players like Peter Queally, Brian Flannery and Brian Greene with remarkable smoothness. While offering careful and temperate comments about Waterford's encouraging league performances, McCarthy sent out teams committed to winning matches.

"What impressed me was the mental capability of the team," says former selector Shane Aherne. "Against Tipperary, Cork and Kilkenny, they put in really good second-half performances. In addition, Justin managed to blood a few new guys to great effect. Senior guys left and that left a bit of space in the panel for younger players to make a claim for themselves. I think also the benefits of having Nicky Cashin, Kevin Ryan and Gerry Fitzpatrick is clear to be seen."

Mansfield agrees. He employed Fitzpatrick for the 1996 campaign, a season interrupted by congested club fixtures that affected the numbers consistently available for training.

It was a shame, he reckons, because Fitzpatrick's programme then was beyond comparison. Waterford's physical edge, their sharpness of touch and underlying confidence is the fruit of the marriage between Fitzpatrick's innovative fitness regime and the proven hurling acumen of McCarthy's regime. Reviewing Waterford's season to date, the league final loss has an isolated look about it.

"Going up to that game, I was fully convinced Waterford would win it," admits former player Stephen Frampton. "I felt that we had come through a couple of really highly-charged games of championship atmosphere against Cork and Waterford and that it was set up for the team to go and win the thing. But the Galway game was an absolute disaster. It came down to the old problem of inconsistency. And I will be honest, because of that I had my worries going in against Clare. I just did not see it happening, definitely not the way it did."

Frampton has noted the body language of his former team-mates on the field against Clare and Tipperary and believes there is "a steel to their game" at the moment that was not so convincing in previous years. He was not wild about the indulgences of showboating, but is not too concerned about it either.

"Yeah, I am not keen on it. But there is a confidence there and it's as if they realise the shackles are off and it is time to forget about the past. There is no fear of anyone in Munster anymore."

As Shane Ahern points out, Waterford have won seven out of eight Munster championship games under McCarthy. Last year's Munster final loss to Cork still nags: that second half was all about the re-affirmation of the old order, with Cork growing more expressive and bold in their hurling while Waterford became addled and rushed and ultimately lost. They failed to ask the right questions of Cork.

Then they added salt to their own wounds by tailing away in the obscurity of the qualifiers in their next game. The usual criticisms followed. So when their latest failure - to land their first league title since 1963 - provoked another round of fairly scathing reviews, it was as if something snapped within the squad.

Justin McCarthy's funny and provocative "O ye of little faith" remark as he moved through the tunnel in Thurles minutes after destroying popular theory and Clare, has been about the only memorable utterance coming from the Waterford camp all summer.

In the build-up to tomorrow's Munster final, nobody is talking. Press communications reached a new low in the organisation of what was effectively a phantom media night: the players were on the field and available for interview, but none of the media organisations were informed of this. It is a pity that a county team should approach its third successive Munster final under such a veil of silence. But perhaps the management and players alike reached the end of their tether after the reaction to their league final display.

"I know that the players were deeply upset at themselves and probably at what was being said," says Frampton.

As well as that, expectations can go sky high as fast as they plummet in Waterford. Already the parallel has been drawn between the 1957-59 Munster final appearances, which delivered a provincial championship in 1957, a loss the following year and a Munster and All-Ireland in 1959. So far,the present Waterford side have emulated that pattern.

"Statistics are fine in their own right," observed Justin McCarthy icily when the comparison was put to him a few weeks ago, "but they don't win championships for you."

And nobody in Waterford is talking in terms of All-Irelands yet. But that may change with another winning-display tomorrow. A Munster championship won on the back of Clare, Tipperary and Cork has to be considered as no mean feat. And the mere fact of reaching three provincial finals in a row suggests a level of consistency that should merit some sort of say in the All-Ireland arena.

"If they win against Cork, they will be regarded as contenders. There is no shying away from that," says Frampton. "And I think that deep down there is the feeling that Waterford will not be taken seriously by commentators until they win an All-Ireland. But that is more of a general thing. Really, winning a Munster championship is hugely important to Waterford hurling in its own right."

That they are playing Cork is reason enough to pause for thought. The heavily-weighted historic precedent does count: 48 provincial titles has created an ineffable sense of expectation not so much among players as among the general public. Cork winning Munster is never a surprise: Waterford doing so remains very much so.

That Cork come in with a novice centrefield partnership; that the great Brian Corcoran has been ushered through to the starting line-up with great haste: that Setanta Ó h'Ailpín is at the other end of the world doesn't take away from Cork being Cork.

The unspoken rage and belief with which Waterford have attacked this Munster championship has restored hope within the province, but although they return to the venerable theatre in Thurles with high optimism, they will also guard themselves against the possibility of another disappointment.

"I think we've good reason to be hopeful in Waterford," says Tony Mansfield. "And it's better to travel hopefully than arrive."