He may, most uncharacteristically for Frank, have been a tad offbeam with his timing, but he had the measure of his men alright.

Six years later. Emily Dickinson's carriage.

Themselves and immortality.

So it's Kilkenny they face. Again. Stop yawning at the back, please. The two best teams in the country contest the 2006 All Ireland final: what, pray tell, is so distressing about that? Are we going to impeach the pair of them for being too good? To return to a point made here many moons ago, if other counties are underlings, the fault lies not in the stars, and certainly not in Cork and Kilkenny, but in themselves.

Hurling is not a sport played in Ruritania.

It never has been. "Four counties dominate hurling, viz. , Tipperary, Cork, Limerick and Kilkenny, " the November 1949 edition of Sport:

Ireland's National Sporting Journal declared.

"Occasionally Dublin may challenge the supremacy of the Big Four. Waterford, Clare, Galway and Laois have outside chances. The other counties are not in All Ireland class." Six counties have contested the All Ireland finals of the decade to date. Six counties did so during the 1960s. Six counties did so during the 1970s. It was almost ever thus.

Don't like the sight of the final becoming the preserve of the old boys' club? Then ask what you can do for your county and get out and work with your local under-12s. And for the love of God stop whinging about the new dominance of the Old Firm; it is as risible as it is irritating to behold how vocal a swathe of public comment is informed by the fallacy that hurling began in 1995. Should the great moment dawn this day next year and Croke Park shine in white and blue at last, the real pleasure in watching Waterford contest an All Ireland final will lie not so much in their presence, heartwarming though that would undoubtedly be, but rather in the knowledge that they had reached into themselves and travelled the extra mile: in short, that they'd bettered themselves because of, rather than despite, Cork and Kilkenny. The proper reaction to a high-set bar is to try and surmount it, not bitch about it.

The 2006 All Ireland series brought us two absorbing semi-finals, one thoroughly enjoyable quarter-final and another two that threw up a raft of talking points. The Munster final was gripping if not spectacular. To respond that this somehow 'isn't enough' begs the question of what exactly it is that people expect from a championship contested by 12 teams. [Adopts Basil Fawltyesque tone] "Sydney Opera House, perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Every match to be a repeat of the 1947 All Ireland final?" Get over it.

Most of the runners and riders did as well or as badly as they were entitled to, other than Galway, who were supremely Galwayesque, and Seamus Qualter's Westmeath, who were immensely refreshing. No apologies for reserving special mention for Wexford, who, instead of receiving their stipulated one championship hiding of the summer, received two of them and had their fig leaf torn away in the process. Like the Railway Children warning about the train rattling down the tracks, the Tribune had been waving its petticoats on this subject for many a year, only to receive in return irate emails from Wexford folk who preferred to be honey-hosed with the usual guff about their marvellous fighting spirit.

Now that they possess in George O'Connor a man who'll stir up the rocks with a warning cry, may they give him every help he needs. Drinking-up time in the Last Chance Saloon has been sounded.

We won't attempt to explore the issue of what make of car Wexford equate to. We do implicitly know what model Cork equate to.

A Volvo. Unlike Kilkenny's flashier marque of 2002-03, the McCarthy Cup holders don't burn up the road and thereby burn up their petrol reserves. They maintain a steady 60mph instead. They're safe, they're solid, they're reliable and they reach their destination within the time allotted. The Volvo with the 06 C numberplate may have its passengers, but they've all paid for their tickets.

There is no shortage of drivers. Donal Og, Diarmuid O'Sullivan, Ronan Curran, Sean Og, Brian Corcoran: a group of men whose faces would grace Mount Rushmore.

It is Cork's willingness to engage with the variables, to attempt to reduce the margin for happenstance, to seek to put a message on every ball even when the easy way out demands the easy way out, that makes them so admirable. To hurl with nerve and precision is infinitely preferable to flah'ing the sliotar as far down the field as is humanly possible to the tune of 'Que Sera, Sera'.

To anyone who looked at the scoreboard at the final whistle, they won their last two matches by a point. To anyone who looked at the matches themselves, they won them by considerably more than a point. The Limerick game was nothing more than a hiccup; the Sunday beforehand, the champions had trained brilliantly, then fretted because Tuesday's session was infused with an inexplicable lethargy. Yet Cork . . . and let's face it, nobody runs down the clock more skilfully . . .

still drew the last 10 minutes in Semple Stadium. Take it that they know how much petrol is left in the tank. Take it too that this is the day they've been living for all summer.

Brilliance, which Cork don't do, rarely wins All Irelands. Steadiness, which they do in spades, almost invariably does.

The absence of JJ Delaney will not comprise the difference this afternoon. The absence of a plan to combat Cork's running game will. We've been watching their squadron manoeuvres so long at this stage that for an opposing manager not to have conceived a counter-plot constitutes a case of almost wilful neglect. Space will be murdered all over the place today. Strangled to death. Suspects everywhere. If the Kilkenny half-forward line are particularly culpable, it will be a cue for Cork fans to worry.

Reasons for the challengers to be cheerful? Many of 'em. They're unbeaten in 2006, they're incontrovertibly the best team Cork have faced, they're the best goalscoring team in the land, their first touch will be as crisp as the champions' own, they'll be as hungry or even downright hungrier and, unlike last season, they appear to have calibrated their training in order to time their run correctly; Cork aren't the only ones who may have more under the bonnet than they've been letting on. In blinding contrast to 2004, moreover, when they managed 13 and 11 points against Clare in the All Ireland quarter-finals and 12 versus Waterford in the semi-final, Kilkenny have been breaking the 20-point barrier with almost unseen regularity. Where's Paddy Grace when you need him?

Yet the good habits of springtime were tossed away last time out; Kilkenny didn't deliver a single calculated low ball to the forwards during the second half against Clare, Cha Fitzpatrick being the most culpable in this regard. A far bigger worry, however, is sourced in the two corners of the defence.

Cork have turned corner-back play on its head and rendered alertness, anticipation, mobility and the willingness to do more than merely play one's position the new priorities. To boast skill without these other virtues is to be disenfranchised in this world of surging red and white.

Of the seven goals the challengers have conceded in their four outings (Cork have conceded two in four: the conclusion is entirely yours), three have stemmed from a failure to adequately defend bread-and-butter deliveries from out the field or the flanks. Once upon a time there was a team who observed the semi-final aerial weaknesses of their bigday opponents and tailored their gameplan around this lacuna. Cork, Galway, 2005.

In two or three years' time, Kilkenny should have a fine team with few weaknesses as opposed to a good one with a number of obvious weaknesses. Which or Whether I:

Brian Cody has to be left there to lead them onward. Which or Whether II: it's about time the two counties treated us to a classic.

Legend still maintains that they used to do nothing but.

Three straws of deepest trivia while we're in the mood. The last drawn final occurred in 1959, an outlandish statistical aberration.

Kilkenny may win All Irelands by flooring Cork when the latter are the favourites, but they categorically . . . and literally . . . don't win All Irelands in years ending in 6. As against that, the Tribune's 10-year record in calling the result of the final reads a faultless four from four when black and amber isn't worn, a wretched two from six when it is. Wood and trees, perhaps.

The good news for the underCats is that the balance of probabilities compels us to opt for Cork. To be simple, or simplistic: it's not that the former can't win, it's that the latter are more likely to. Kilkenny will need any number of things to go right for them in order to win;

Cork will not. Kilkenny will have to play really well in order to win; Cork will not. Kilkenny must stop fumbling ball at the back; the last time a Cork defender was party to a fumble was with some young one out the back of Reardon's during his under-21 days. Kilkenny will be required both to perform heroics in attack and to keep their nose clean in defence; Cork will merely have to avoid doing anything silly in defence, given that for 13 consecutive outings their attack has contrived to look after itself and post a winning total.

The Guinness posters have it right. Immortality beckons.

ALL IRELAND SHC FINAL Cork v Kilkenny Croke Park, 3.30 Referee B Kelly (Westmeath) Live, RTE Two, 12.30 PATHS TO THE FINAL CORK ALL IRELAND SEMI-FINAL August 6, Croke Park beat Waterford, 1-16 to 1-15 ALL IRELAND QUARTER-FINAL July 22, Semple Stadium beat Limerick, 0-19 to 0-18 MUNSTER FINAL June 25, Semple Stadium beat Tipperary, 2-14 to 1-14 MUNSTER SEMI-FINAL May 28, Semple Stadium beat Clare, 0-20 to 0-14 KILKENNY ALL IRELAND SEMI-FINAL Aug 13, Croke Park beat Clare, 2-21 to 1-16 ALL IRELAND QUARTER-FINAL July 22, Semple Stadium beat Galway, 2-22 to 3-14 LEINSTER FINAL July 2, Croke Park beat Wexford, 1-23 to 2-12 LEINSTER SEMI-FINAL June 10, Cusack Park beat Westmeath, 1-23 to 1-9