"Think of your fathers, think of your grandfathers, think of the men that died lads. Jaysus lads, the men that died so that you could get out there with a stick and a small ball to puck around. So get out there lads and let every blow lead to a feckin' funeral." With words like that ringing in their ears, how could the players of Clare and Tipperary not have been fired up to the point of spontaneous combustion as they took to the field at Croke Park for yesterday's AllIreland hurling final?

"Don't be afraid to break hurleys lads - there's plenty of hurleys on the sideline - hit 'em hard, they're no relation. I don't want to see ye coming back in here with dirty jerseys, I want to see ye with BLOODstained jerseys, so get out now boys and enjoy yerselves."

Actually, not having had access to the Clare and Tipperary changing rooms yesterday afternoon, there is no evidence whatsoever to prove that Ger Loughnane or Len Gaynor gave such a speech as they sent their players in to action. But, having learnt something of the Clare-Tipperary rivalry in the pre-match build-up last week, it's probably what their hearts were saying.

The words, in fact, came from a sketch by the D'Unbelievables, as seen on the Pat Kenny Show on Saturday night, which was kind of an 1997 version of Up for the Match (but, oddly, also featured interviews with President-elect Dana and the man our grannies would like to be President, Daniel O'Donnell. Hurlers on the ditch, the two of them).

Of course to those unfamiliar with the passions of inter-parish GAA rivalries, the sketch was entirely fictitious. But to the Clare and Tipperary men sitting in the audience it probably reminded them of a hundred speeches they have made and heard in their time as they prepared for battle with the local rivals. There is, after all, a Glengooly in every parish in Ireland.

Whether or not there's a Bullock Doody in every parish in Ireland, we can't be certain, but there's probably someone very like him. Someone who still carries the scars, 50 years later, from an epic encounter with the neighbouring parish's team. Someone who insists on showing you those scars every single time you bump in to him in the town. (Yeah, I've met the Bullock too. "Did I tell you about the time in 1949, when I was playing at right corner back, and just after half time I . . ." he starts. "Eh, yeah, you did, 67 times actually," you answer, but he always finishes the story anyway.)

D'Unbelievables' Jon Kenny, in his pre-match chat to the players of Glengooly before they took on "the Bally boys" in a repeat of the 1949 county final, introduced Bullock Doody to his team and asked them to think of him whenever they went in for a 50-50 ball.

"Lads when you're out there today would ye think of '49 and think of what happened on that day because, we all know lads, the Bullock Doody had his leg bitten off in the small parallelogram, from the knee down. But lads, the Bullock played away with his stump and a half, he scored a goal and four points and lost a gallon of blood.

"We never got the Bullock's leg back, his sock back, his boot back, that Bally crowd kept the whole feckin' lot. So gentlemen, when you go out there today - and I'm not a man to bear a grudge - think of the Bullock, think of '49."

At the conclusion of his speech, the Glengooly man (Jimmy Ryan) made no apologies for asking his players to play like men. "Ye're sitting there thinking `Jimmy Ryan is too hard on us' - well I tell you something I'm NOT, ye'll know all about it next year when ye're playing under-14."

Maybe Killaloe's Smith O'Brien's and the Ballina GAA Club, neighbours on the Clare-Tipperary border, are the Glengooly and `Bally boys' of the real world. Officials from the two clubs were interviewed on Sideline View last Thursday and Dessie Cahill was almost forced to pull them apart when they got the niceties out of the way and started speaking their minds.

"Ye only got in by the back door," was the general Smith O'Brien's message; "Yeah, but we'll come out the front with the Liam McCarthy cup ye shower of *******," said the faces of the Ballina contingent.

Of course one of the prices that had to be paid by the people of Clare and Tipperary last week was a full scale invasion by RTE in the buildup to the big match. Pat Kenny, Dessie Cahill, Michael Lyster and Marty Morrissey, amongst others, spent the entire week harassing the locals.

Spare a thought for the mothers of the players. It seems to be a peculiarly Irish/RTE thing that in the run-up to an All-Ireland final, these mothers have to give Marty a cup of tea in their kitchens (best china and tea cosies out of course) and talk about their boys' dedication to the game.

Brede Lohan, mother of Clare's Brian and Frank, had to feed Marty in her kitchen last week (and probably an entire camera crew) and when he was finished there, he set up camp in the living room of Phil Touhy, mother of Clare's Fergie. You never see Des Lynam interviewing Gazza's mother before a big England match. The man you had to feel sorriest for last week, though, was John Shelley, a Tipperary man given the job of driving a coach load of Clare fans to Dublin. As he set off from enemy territory, with another RTE camera crew on board, his was deafened by cries of `You'll never beat the Banner'. Poor man.

"If they win, I'm not bringing them home," he said and you believed him too.