One virtuoso, a couple of gifted soloists, a plethora of session musicians and an impresario who did exactly what it said on the tin. Babs was the Babs of old, Tipp were the Tipp of late. Small earthquake in Thurles. Not many dead.

In setting down their championship instruments at the quarter-final stage for the second season in succession, this being the third year since they've hurled in August, Tipperary did no more and no less than they'd done 12 months ago. They found their level. Move along there now, nothing to see.

To anyone who'd watched them in spring, the noteworthy aspect of last Sunday's defeat was there was no noteworthy aspect. Two home scutchings from Kilkenny, the second in some ways even more disturbing than the first, and a defeat at the same venue by Galway: the National League mightn't reveal the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it rarely tells outright porkies.

Unlike last year, when they performed a reasonable impression of Michael Gomez against Galway in the closing quarter, this time around Tipp had sufficient spirit to plug away and finish within a puck of the ball of a team at least six points superior. Not much of a consolation? Probably not, but two words will suffice to thumbnail the general reaction of the faithful.

Weary resignation. The few who tried to make out Redser was missed last Sunday were evidently away for the Cork game. Probably on Mars.

In announcing afterwards the management had been at their wits' end as to how to combat Ken McGrath and Dan Shanahan, Babs, a man not unaccustomed to interpreting success as 'we' and defeat as 'they', was neither disowning his players nor attempting to rewrite history. He has long bemoaned the shortage of talent in the county. It's to Babs's considerable credit that, knowing the attendant dangers of returning to a scene of past success, he came back in the first place. Purses, ears, etc.

The Department of All Too Obvious Remarks will inform us that Eoin Kelly needs more support up front, reveal that he racked up 3-38 out of his county's championship aggregate of 7-63 and add that the next highest scorers were John Carroll with 2-4, Lar Corbett with 2-3 and John O'Brien . . . Tipp's biggest pointscorer after Kelly . . . with 0-7. Just once in four attempts, 0-22 against Limerick, did Tipperary compile a satisfactory points' total;

in each of their other three outings they failed to break the 14-point barrier. You don't win championship fixtures in this day and age with 14 points unless you're Wexford.

But Tipperary's real onfield problem is sourced deeper, in the presence of too many players who'd be effective . . . or at any rate adequate . . . in a good team but who do not make the difference in a mediocre one. Paul Kelly doesn't offer anywhere near enough engine-room rigour to compensate when his shooting is off-centre, as it was seven days ago; Shane McGrath, a modest success, is sprightly, brave and lightweight; John O'Brien, despite his now-regular couple of points per game, remains irredeemably peripheral; and John Carroll might ask himself what exactly he contributes to the commonweal when he's not bullocking forward on the scent of goals.

Factor in the droop in Brendan Cummins's aura and Tipperary's undoubted summer pluses . . . Eamon Corcoran's joyous transformation from unhappy corner-back to wing-back of swash and buckle, Paul Ormonde's welcome return, Paul Curran's hitchfree switch to full-back and Conor O'Mahoney's adequacy (that word again) at number six . . . don't amount to as much as they might.

Yet last Sunday was important only in its own setting.

Next Wednesday week the county under-21s meet Cork in the provincial final. This day fortnight the minors take on Kilkenny in the All Ireland semi-final. Where the long-term future of Tipperary hurling is concerned, the senior game was in the hapenny place next to these.

In the meantime, let us be grateful that Eoin Kelly already has his All Ireland medal. Tipp folk can feel free to pray that he doesn't get injured the week of the 2007 quarter-final.