"I don't see anything strange in the situation at all, " Dunne asserts. "And the thing is, all the managers who came did their best. Most of them were very good. A couple were top-class. Maybe some of them felt our discipline wasn't good enough, our spirit wasn't good enough, our conviction wasn't strong enough. Actually, rather than us talking about them, I'd love to hear what they thought of us."

Hear what the roll call of his former club coaches thought of Toomevara? Now Dunne can. Presenting, in no particular order, some of Pat Herbert's predecessors as Toome coach talking about their time with the club.

"Absolutely brilliant, " says Michael Conneely, who coached the Greyhounds to county success in 2003.

"Lovely people. I had a great time. Even their supporters were fanatical. I used find it hard to get away from the supporters after training.

They always wanted to talk hurling."

"A very strong parochial identity and a very keen sense of representing their parish, " says Sean Hehir, who led them to Munster glory two years ago. "And considerable strength in depth. Hurlers who'd be considered exceptional in most other clubs were no more than very good hurlers in Toomevara."

"They're unique, " says Tom Ryan, coach of the 1998-99 county-winning outfit. "They might have had more outside coaches than I've had hot dinners, but they have their own way of doing things and are very slow to change to other methods. The place is so full of experts that you'd wonder why they go for outside coaches. But there's definitely an aura about them."

"Most of us who've grown up with a club regard hurling as important, " says Sean Stack, who's had two spells at the helm. "In Toomevara, it's not just important . . . it's nearly everything to a huge number of households."

Conneely. Hehir. Ryan.

Stack. Not forgetting Pad Joe Whelahan, the original of the species. Appointing Pad Joe, their first outside trainer in modern times, was the really big step. When he landed in Toomevara in 1991, he arrived at a club boasting plenty of promising youngsters, plenty of recent underage titles but no county silverware since 1960. In his first season, he brought them to a divisional title. In his second season, he brought them to the Dan Breen Cup. The big step had led to fortune. After that, there was rarely a need to re-cross the Rubicon.

The depth of the club's playing resources may have made matters more conducive to outside managers, according to Roger Ryan, one of Pat Herbert's selectors today. For the past 12 years or so, Ryan points out, Toomevara have had strong panels, with 18 or 19 players of generally equal ability vying for places. An illustration. The team listed in this year's county final programme contained neither David Young, the Tipperary under-21 captain, nor Joey McLoughney, the minor captain. With practically every other club in the country, at least one of the pair would have worn a jersey numbered below 15. With many of them, both would have.

"It's a little bit easier for an outside guy to keep the players properly tuned in those circumstances, whereas if you're from the parish and friendly with them, keeping them onside can be a problem, " Ryan argues. "And then you'd have to say we've been very lucky with the managers we've had. They were all ex-county hurlers who'd proven themselves before they came."

A long-tailed parish with four schools and four churches, Toomevara lacks the focal point normally provided by a small town. Hurling gives them a focal point of a different kind. Sean Hehir still talks about their Friday night routine on match weekends: a light training session, a frequently hectic team talk, then down to the old dressing rooms where the members of the ladies' committee would ply them with sandwiches, sponge cakes, apple tarts and other goodies. "I always got the impression from the women that it was nearly an honour for them to be doing their bit this way. It was another indication of the great sense of pride and community in Toomevara."

Not that it's been all sweetness and light, despite the 10 county titles in the past 15 seasons. Three years ago Joe Dooley was dispensed with as manager in a palace coup that took the players by surprise. Tom Ryan had ridden to the rescue when they were on their knees in 1998 after losing the north final to Nenagh; he extracted two county titles from a young side, but St Joseph's DooraBarefield proved physically stronger and more streetwise in the Munster championship. It's only now, Ryan contends, that the "slips of lads" he coached in the late 1990s are coming into their kingdom.

It's a tribute to the club that so many of their former coaches still carry a little piece of Toomevara in their hearts. Ryan, for instance, is delighted to see Michael Bevans over his injury problems, describes John O'Brien as "coming very good", is impressed by Willie Ryan's score-getting talent and reckons Ken and Benny Dunne ("a natural defender . . . how did they ever put him in the forwards?") have reached their prime. Sean Stack speaks glowingly of Roger Ryan and is equally willing to hold forth on the current team's welfare, asserting that the emergence of David Young has stabilised the defence and allowed Eoin Brislane to return to his position of maximum effectiveness at midfield.

Stack will be at the Gaelic Grounds today and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

He'd be happier for Toomevara, however, if he could be sure that what he terms "the tradition of the hard man" was a thing of the past. Stack knows whereof he speaks, having been the coach when Toomevara lost the 1994 All Ireland final against Sarsfields by two points after playing with 14 men for the last 36 minutes.

"There's still a little core to the team that's always likely to erupt. After they went a couple of points up against Mount Sion the last day, they gave away three ridiculous frees for the sake of being physical. There are a few hands that are rarely too far away from the red button.

Yet Toomevara are still the strongest club I've ever been involved with. A step above Sixmilebridge even, and Sixmilebridge are used to success."

They are, Tommy Dunne accepts, "probably not the easiest group to live with, " himself certainly included. "I don't know how it works in other clubs, but I strongly feel that Toomevara hadn't a group of players suitable for having the same manager in charge of them over a long period. I'm not surprised we've had such a high turnover."

Not to worry. One of these days we'll get around to asking Pat Herbert what he thinks of them too.