After seeing further proof that Tony O'Sullivan and Seanie O'Leary's late goals were not just figments of some awful nightmare, a depressed English stayed on to watch highlights of the 11 points Frank McGuigan scored from play in the Ulster final that same day. "I remember, " said English in his autobiography Beyond the Tunnel, "being hugely envious of Frank's smile as he was interviewed afterwards." Last Sunday English and everyone else from Tipperary would have had reason to be beaming in Thurles. After all these years, hurling and the Munster championship finally came up with its McGuigan Moment and it was one of their own who delivered it.

For McGuigan's five with his right, five with his left and one with his fist, read Kelly's four off his right, four off his left and five from deadballs.

Christy Ring once asked Babs Keating after the latter's brilliant display in the 1968 Munster final could it have been even better, and when Kelly reflects on two of his shots on goal, one which was saved, the other which was blocked, he knows Keating could say the same to him. Still, it was McGuigan-esque. Excellence, if not perfection.

All week the plaudits have been streaming in. Martin Storey declared Kelly as the now anointed successor to DJ Carey as the player of his generation, and with it, the burden of comparisons with Ring. Jimmy Barry-Murphy proclaimed Kelly as "good a player as I've ever seen in my time playing and in time management"; that's quarter of a century. Leo McGeough's statistics on this page show that never in the history of the Munster championship has one player raised as many white flags either from play or in total in one game. Donie Nealon's observations in particular though probably best put Kelly's display in context.

Fifty years ago at the same venue against the same county, Nealon witnessed Christy Ring score 3-1 in five minutes but that came from a pique of genius. "The thing about Kelly on Sunday, " noted Nealon, "was that he was superb over the full 70 minutes. I can't recall a more perfect display by a player over a full game."

It's certainly hard to recall one by a forward. There was one period in the first half alright where Kelly went 10 minutes without a score, and another in the second half, where he went 15. Even asterisks have to be put beside those spells; no other Munster championship game in recent times has had so much injury time. Leaving aside his disallowed goal, Kelly was on the ball 17 times from play.

Eight of those times he scored. With another he set up a point for John Carroll.

With three others, he won two frees and a 65 which he all converted himself. He had just one wide. Only once did he get on the ball and a scoring chance failed to come off it; even then he completed a hand pass to Carroll. Every little thing he did was magic.

He was not alone. While Storey rightly pointed that Kelly often had to forage for and win hard ball against bigger men in Mark Foley and TJ Ryan, some of the supply was ideal ball. A signature of Babs Keatings' teams in his first tenure with Tipp was low, fast ball into Pat Fox and English; last Sunday, Kelly's first two points from play came from measured deliberate clearances from Eamon Corcoran and Philly Maher. Michael Webster, with his endless workrate and aerial power, also proved a useful foil. Kelly was also aided by Limerick's inertia on the sideline.

Leaving Mark Foley and then TJ Ryan on Kelly for so long was the most costly nonswitch Thurles has seen since Gardiner-Shanahan in the 2004 Munster final, and possibly the most costly Gaelic games itself has seen since Pat Holmes-Maurice Fitzgerald in the 1997 All Ireland football final.

Mayo folk will never know why Kenneth Mortimer was not assigned to the Great One that day; ditto Limerick folk with Damien Reale and Kelly.

Even Tipp men are puzzled.

Kelly is on record as saying that the two players he least likes being marked by are Reale and Ollie Canning. In their previous three championship meetings, Reale had held Kelly to a point each time; there was no better candidate in hurling, let alone Limerick, for the role. As fine a job as Joe McKenna has done in uniting the Limerick camp, his match-day coaching, and in particular his oversight of some glaring defensive mismatches (Redser on Reale for that goal last year), has, this past two years, cost his team two wins over Tipp in Tipp.

Limerick could even have withstood McKenna's deficiency and Kelly's majesty had they retained the mental focus they had in the game's opening minutes. Cyril Farrell was half-right when he claimed that Limerick were nearly afraid to win. Limerick's biggest fault wasn't so much that they were afraid to win but, as English pointed out, that after their two early goals, they thought they were going to win. Every sport psychology book will tell you, athletes cannot concentrate on two different things at the same time. If you think about winning, you cannot be thinking about making the next block or winning the next puck-out.

When those two goals went in, Limerick were thinking to themselves just what the groundsman famously said to Greg Norman the night before the final round of the '96 Masters: "Not even you can blow this one, buddy."

The art of performance is to stay in the now. If you leave it, if you go back to the past or think of the future, you choke.

That's what happened to Limerick. They became obsessed about outcome and forgot about process. They won the first five puck-outs of the game. Tipp would win 12 of the first-half 's remaining 17.

Limerick made the first block and hook of the game. For the rest of the game Tipp would beat them 14-4 in this category. If Limerick are to win in future, they must learn that the art of winning isn't just to win but to try to win by as much as possible. That's where Farrell was right. Limerick were afraid to try that.

That Tipp fought so hard to win those puck-outs and make so many blocks has rightly been a source of pride for their supporters. There are signs that they may have become too excitable. The idea that Tipp and Babs played possum in the league to draw the media and Limerick into a first-round trap is laughable. Why waste such a tactic on a team that hasn't won any of its last 14 championship matches against top nine opposition? Why mess with your own team's confidence and further boost Kilkenny and Galway's?

Tipp have to win four or five more serious games to win the All Ireland. Tanking in games to deceive opponents and the media is hardly part of the plan between now and September, just as it wasn't part of the one between February and April.

Last Sunday was one game.

What will Kelly score with Alan Markham sweeping in front of him, or a Brian Murphy or Sherlock with every Cork man outside them minimising the chance of him getting high-percentage ball?

Babs was brought to win back Munster and All Ireland championships, not to win one or two championship games. We still stand by what we said here last week: publicly criticising your own players and getting three trimmings in the league is inconsistent with the profile of championship-winning managers and teams in the 21st century.

It will take another few stirring displays to know if the old Babs' magic is back. The thing he has going for him is that the players might now think it is. The Waterford players were sceptical of Justin McCarthy's philosophy weeks before the 2002 Munster championship but after one win they were believers and after another, Munster champions. After being challenged by some of his players, Babs will hardly tongue-lash them again in public. And after this win, he has a more recent reference point of Tipp spirit.

While the rest of us will forever have one of individual hurling excellence.