Let's further imagine the Cork attack being served with a less protein-rich diet from back the field than they're accustomed to and being thereby reduced to their component parts.

Timmy Mac game but onedimensional, Niall Mac game but gauche (and off-song gauche at that), Ben O'Connor more effective in open spaces than tight corners, Cian O'Connor a defender, Joe Deane a smashing hurler who doesn't make a difference often enough. How much will all of this matter?

Not enough, one suspects.

This is a team that is not merely more than the sum of its parts, it's a team in which the lesser parts are rendered irrelevant by the strength and singlemindedness of the collective. Cork's system both magnifies the influence of their bulwarks and nullifies the ineffectiveness of their weak spots . . . so long, naturally, as the weak spots do their prescribed share of heavy lifting. It is, in terms of this particular set of players and in the widest dimension possible, the perfect system.

Even on a bad day, we can reasonably expect Cork to hit 18 points. But it won't do Tipp any harm to plan for conceding, say, 1-21.

A number of obvious assumptions can be made about the challengers. That all of their year to date was directed towards today. That they'll be more comfortable in Semple Stadium than they were in Pairc Ui Chaoimh last season, even if Cork will be no less comfortable. That Tipp, having been steamrolled by the big red machine in the first half 12 months ago, possess a far better grasp of the rules of engagement. That Babs, who shouldn't be expected to reinvent the wheel and floor Cork with a hitherto undreamt-of tactical masterstroke, will nonetheless send out his boys to administer a coherent gameplan designed to minimise the opposition's strengths and maximise his own team's strengths, probably in that order. That's all that can be asked of him.

Paul Kelly's return is not an automatic cure-all. He won't zoom up and down the field with Tom and Jerry, digging out possession on his own 21 or charging forward to fire points from the other lot's 21. He won't, unlike his sibling, grab hold of a game and change its face. But by firing over two or three points from distance, he'll undo some . . .

though not all . . . of the damage done by the Cork midfield.

Nor will the younger Kelly be marked this time by a former swashbuckling wing-back or a championship debutant.

Elsewhere Declan Fanning looks as misplaced as Eamon Corcoran was last year, John O'Brien must contribute more and were Redser a golfer you'd be having words with him about his choice of clubs and shot selection. A simple early point might do wonders for him. While Diarmaid Fitzgerald, who has a fine paw on him and should draw a couple of frees, could do a ball-winning job on the half-forward line, that wouldn't chime with the notion of trying to move the sliotar past the Cork half-back line quickly. Tipp tried alternative half-forward lines in training before settling on today's trio.

Every day the champions take the field is a day of further petrol consumption, a day that gives another challenger a chance to crack the system, a day nearer the day of their demise. But that is not this day. Cork to win by three or four points.

CORK D Og Cusack; B Murphy, D O'Sullivan, P Mulcahy (c); J Gardiner, R Curran, S Og O hAilpin; T Kenny, J O'Connor; T McCarthy, N McCarthy, C O'Connor; B O'Connor, B Corcoran, J Deane

TIPPERARY B Cummins; D Fanning, P Curran, P Ormonde; E Corcoran, E O'Mahoney, H Moloney; P Kelly, S McGrath; J Carroll, G O'Grady (c), J O'Brien; D Fitzgerald, L Corbett, E Kelly MUNSTER SHC FINAL CORK v TIPPERARY Semple Stadium, 4.00 Referee D Murphy (Wexford) Live, RTE One, 3.40