For those who find the Le Carre ambiguities of what motivates teams in these matches to be sometimes baffling, Tipperary brought clarity.
Their one-sided victory on Saturday in Ennis before a crowd of 7,000, came after a week full of consensus that Tipperary and Clare really wouldn't want to rehearse their championship fixture on June 3rd in next week's Allianz National Hurling League final. But what could a team do when faced with the abjectness of Galway's challenge?
Nicky English accepted the situation, referred to the lack of competitiveness and larded his post-match comments with talk of perspective, the need for restraint and the scale of the task awaiting his team when they face Clare in five weeks. But he still sent out a side which again showcased what has become a startling attack and which had effectively won the match by the second quarter.
Even if the opposition was feeble, the style of the victory was impressive as was the implicitly forthright declaration that they weren't going to trim their sails for fear of having to play Clare in a league final.
Yet there was an air of caution about English afterwards as he talked about the match and the performance of the bright young things, Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett, in the corners of Tipperary's attack. "I thought it was very uncompetitive," he said. "It's hard to know what Galway wanted out of the game. They (Kelly and Corbett) are still young and no one's getting carried away because Frank Lohan, Colm Forde and Brian Lohan will be a greater test than anything encountered so far."
The need for perspective will be pressing. If the county's league run last year was notable for anything it was the emergence of a new defence with the burgeoning talents of Philip Maher, Paul Ormond, John Carroll and Eamonn Corcoran. This season attention has focused on the forwards. They're not an all-new combination but Kelly and Corbett, still in their teens, have attracted rave notices and the movement and slick interplay of the attack as a unit have been impressive since the resumption of the league.
Saturday's statistics tell their own story. All scores came from the attack. The starting half-dozen aggregated 2-17, all but three points coming from play. By the 33rd minute, they had all scored from play.
That feat was brought up with the most spectacular point of the afternoon. Eddie Enright hit a fast ball from 35 metres at medium height into Declan Ryan. A little out of sorts in the early exchanges, Ryan met the ball perfectly, caught it and pointed.
Even the substitute forwards got in on the act. Eugene O'Neill and John O'Brien came in near the end and each helped themselves to a point. The goals did little more than rubber-stamp the trend of the match. Corbett flew on to a fumbled ball in Galway's defence and dispatched a crisp finish, hard and well placed, past Liam Donoghue.
That was in the 16th minute. Eight minutes into the second half, Corbett again broke through and Ryan popping the ball up and cracking his shot to the net finished the move.
In the midst of all this free scoring Tommy Dunne, usually the most reliable fount of scores for the county, was having a subdued afternoon at centrefield and was eventually replaced by his brother Terry.
Galway were overwhelmed. So many things went wrong for them that there's not space for all the specifics. The sight of Cathal Moore being cleaned out by the mercurial Mark O'Leary (five points from play in the first half, nothing but substitution thereafter) summed up the afternoon.
The forwards created little sustained pressure apart from Eugene Cloonan's four unanswered points after coming on as a replacement.
Galway manager Noel Lane replied to inquiries about his well-being with a weary - "how would I be?" before placing a dispiriting day in context. "It was one of those days. Tipperary were flying it, they had a championship sharpness. There's a huge gap between what they're at and what we're at. They've played Laois, Cork and Kilkenny in the last few weeks. We didn't have a game for a month.
We're not out in the championship until July 29th so we're at a different stage of physical preparation. After seven or eight minutes you could see the difference in match fitness."
The final concerned English in two respects. Wing back Paul Kelly had to be replaced with a bad finger injury. It's a very nasty injury and there's no way he will play next week. Later, though, Kelly appeared to have been treated for a bad cut rather than a break.
Secondly, English criticised the choice of Pairc Ui Chaoimh as a proposed venue for any Tipperary-Kilkenny final - though this is now academic as Clare have qualified. "When they can play the Division Two football final at Croke Park I can't see why the National Hurling League should be moved around all the time. It should be played in Croke Park every year," he said.
TIPPERARY: B Cummins; T Costello, P Maher, P Ormond; E Corcoran, J Carroll, P Kelly; C Gleeson, Tommy Dunne; M O'Leary (0-7, two frees), E Enright (0-2), L Cahill (0-2); E Kelly (0-4, one free), D Ryan (1-1), L Corbett (1-1). Subs: P Curran for Costello (half-time); Terry Dunne for Tommy Dunne (56 mins); E O'Neill (0-1) for E Kelly (59 mins); J O'Brien (0-1) for O'Leary (64 mins); M Ryan for P Kelly (66 mins).
GALWAY: L Donoghue; F Gantley, M Healy, O Canning; D Hardiman, L Hodgins, C Moore; P Walsh, D Tierney (0-1); O Fahy (0-1), L Burke (0- 2, two frees), A Kerins (0-2); K Broderick, M Kerins (1-3), F Healy (0-1). Subs: D Shaughnessy for Walsh (27 mins); E Cloonan (0- 5, four frees) for Burke (45 mins); N Linnane for Fahy (52 mins); E McDonagh for Gantley (57 mins).
Referee: P Ahern (Carlow).
