Munster SHC Final Cork v Waterford: Keith Duggan hears the Cork boss arguing that too much has been made of the rout of Clare.

Donal O'Grady stands with his back against the wall. Although it is a sultry and true summer's day in Cork city, the manager looks like he has just stepped out of a health product commercial. He is tanned and considered and collected.

Around him, scarlet Irish men drip and melt. O'Grady looks troubled. He blinks at the merry, clammy inquisition that surrounds him and it blinks back. It is hard to know whether to ask him about Cork and the All-Ireland or merely hand him the blindfold and be done with it.

All O'Grady sees is bullets coming and he is wary. There is too much talk of Cork, too much singing of The Banks. One game and a county supposedly still wracked by the aftermath of insurrection has somehow been returned to the top row of the coconut shy, bright red and bold and asking to be knocked.

"So people are basing everything on one game, is it? I thought the reaction to the Clare game was over the top, to be honest," he argues.

"We did well enough in stages, but there were plenty of stages when we didn't. Clare were handicapped by the absence of Seánie McMahon. If he was there to stick the long-range frees away, it could have been different.

"Looking at it dispassionately, you don't go from being an ordinary team on a Saturday night or Sunday morning to being a superstar team on six o'clock on Sunday evening.

"So I would take that with a grain of salt.

"The Cork public, too - maybe because of the problems of the year before, it was more relief than anything that made them go overboard."

O'Grady knows his pleas fall on deaf ears but like a dogged court-room counsellor, he persists. It is easy to understand his position. Since that thunderous win over Clare, everything has been too happy and smooth.

With a hot sun beating down, it's like the Riviera on Leeside. Cork have not only been transformed into the best hurling team in the world, they will also have the best tans.

Waterford might be the Munster champions but they are pale skins. Cork are back in a Munster final with no particular grievance against the world, and O'Grady has been around too long not to be worried by that perspective.

"In all areas really we need to improve," he says.

"'Twas a semi-final but basically, it was a first round match. Look at our scoring rate - 1-18. Last year, we scored 1-16 against Limerick, 1-15 against Waterford and I don't know what against Galway but it was more or less the same.

"So all over the field, you would hope we could progress."

Ah, but the sight of Setanta Ó hAilpín rising majestically from the dust and Joe Deane panning for nuggets in enemy territory and all around red shirts playing the game with an ardour reminiscent of the totemic season of 1999 was a boon to Cork hurling fans.

The appointment of O'Grady, with his firm and authoritative manner acquired after many years teaching at the North Monastery, presaged a league season that was as easy on the eye and ear as last year's had been stormy. It was as if the upheaval never happened.

"I think it had all settled down by the time we came in. My whole brief was to just concentrate on the hurling side of things and Mickey Dowling's appointment as hurling officer made that so easy. He came in and has done a superb job of taking care of a lot of the day-to-day work, leaving us to work on the playing side."

O'Grady's assumption of the post was not a pre-ordained thing.

"Well, I was surprised to be asked at the time. I didn't think I would be in the frame really. I'd say there were other people asked before me and they went down the list and came to my name.

"But it is a voluntary position so I don't think there was too many people lined up for it either."

After a spring of regeneration, they entered the championship against Clare in perfect circumstances, fresh and an unknown quantity with judgment generally held in reserve. It worked so perfectly O'Grady did not have to make a single switch.

Fifteen players won it at a canter.

"Yeah, we finished with the 15 that started but I wasn't conscious of that being in any way significant. It was just that no particular changes were needed. We were not under any pressure in the last 10 minutes that we had to keep the game from going away from us. We always had that cushion. Doesn't mean we won't have to make changes against Waterford."

Waterford. The other team. So thoroughly have Cork captured the imagination it is the reigning champions who will be allowed enter the coliseum at Thurles with less fanfare.

"Unfortunately, I only got to see them in the replay against Limerick. But Waterford are Munster champions and they probably should have won it the first day. They are a very strong team and you know, there is a mountain to climb for Cork."

But they are happy and hopeful pilgrims again.