For a third straight year, Cloyne had defied all the odds to make their way to the final of the most competitive championship in hurling and for the third straight year they had come up short in the final. Cusack had been the leader of that insurgency, and would now be the brunt of uninformed, biased ridicule. Corcoran headed towards Cusack's goal and put his arm around him. Cusack was inconsolable and unashamedly cried, holding his hand to his face, as Corcoran and himself slowly made their way up the field, arm in arm. But in time Cusack can have the consolation of this. Cloyne showed and earned more honour in defeat last Sunday than a team like Loughrea did in victory.

You might not have heard much this past week about the Cork county final, only that Erins Own won and Corcoran is now primed to be Cork captain next season.

Shame. It was everything you would want hurling and sport to be. Although last Sunday has now been flagged as a dark day for club hurling, it is hard, when you look at the majesty of the Cork final and the Tipperary decider, to think of one better.

The scorelines of both games tell some of the story. Toomevara 1-21, Nenagh 2-14; Erins Own 2-19 Cloyne 314. This writer was not at the Tipp final;

we've only seen the highlights on TV and the write-ups in the papers, but we've read and seen enough to know it was special. The Cork county final I saw with my own two eyes. The guile and vision of Diarmuid O'Sullivan at centreforward for Cloyne; the dash and daring of his younger brother Paudie in the corner; in the other corner, the other Cusack, Conor, whose reflexes for Cloyne's first goal were as sharp as DJ's for that immortal goal against Antrim in '91; Eoghan Murphy, whose leap from the ground to bang home Erins Own's first goal was reminiscent of DJ's for that point at the end of the 2000 All Ireland;

Kieran 'Hero' Murphy's point on the run before halftime and wonder free before full-time; the sweeping play and points from wing-back Peter Kelly;

Erins Own's second goal and Cloyne's response to it by conjuring up a magnificent third of their own;

the imperious class and composure of Corcoran; there was so much to savour and treasure.

In the end, there had to be a loser, and the scoreboard says it was Cloyne. In the closing minutes, the effects of beating Newtownshandrum only seven days earlier seemed to catch up with them. Likewise, by the way they snatched at one or two shots, so did the fear of losing a third final in a row. Erins Own had a vibrancy and resolve about them that was just not going to be denied. Yet in a way, Cloyne did not lose.

Erins Own won but Cloyne did not lose.

Vince Lombardi would say his teams were never defeated, they just ran out of time. So it is with Cloyne. Leave aside that last Sunday Dave Copps, though his officiating in general was up to the standard of the match in itself, blew for fulltime half-way through the one minute's injury-time; "There is always another chance, " the actress Mary Pickford once said. "This thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down but the staying down." Time and time again Cloyne keep picking themselves up. They've never failed.

They might never find what they're looking for. Back in the '90s in Cork there was a football team called Kiskeam that reached three county junior finals; an incredible achievement considering the number of teams that play in that competition. They lost the three of them, the third in 1997 to another defiant team called Ballinora, 2-7 to 0-12. The stakes couldn't have been higher; the conditions in Carrigadrohid that day couldn't have been worse. No player was shown a yellow or red card in that game.

And in these eyes, no player in that game lost.

It's what some people, especially in the environs of Ulster football and Galway club hurling, will never grasp. The reason why Corcoran, Carey and Sean Og are icons is not what they've won but how they've won; not once were any of them booked playing for their county. So when I hear winning managers, including this weekend's international rules duo of Kevin Sheedy and Sean Boylan, justify blackguardism in the name of victory and "what was at stake", I think back to that rain-soaked glorious day in Carrigadrohid and the dignity of Ballinora and Kiskeam.

And in years to come no doubt when people claim and twist what "winning" and "losing" is all about, the heroic defiance of Cloyne and the class and compassion of Corcoran will stay with me too.