A few months into the 2001 NBA season, a disgusted Phil Jackson summoned his LA Lakers to his hotel room after a disjointed, spiritless defeat.

The Lakers were the reigning world champions but Jackson knew from winning six other championships with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls to know they weren't a championship team. So he explained it to them. There is a difference, he said, between being a team that's won a championship and being a championship team.

Ross Carr has long understood this. When Armagh qualified for a second consecutive All Ireland final in 2003, it triggered Carr to think of his own career. Instead of dwelling on the All Irelands he'd won, he was haunted by the games he hadn't won or even played in. He only played in four Ulster finals. He played in just two All Ireland semifinals. He never won a league.

Down's time had been a year or two when it should have been an era.

On the eve of this year's championship, he reiterated the point. He might have had twice as many All Ireland medals as Kieran McGeeney but he had far more respect for McGeeney's team than his own. McGeeney had six Ulsters, a league medal, played in six All Ireland semi-finals.

Down had won a championship but they had not been a championship team.

Armagh, even if they had never won it all in 2002, had been a championship team.

The same principle applies in every sport. Ever before the nirvana that was Cardiff, 2006, Munster were a European championship team;

Northampton, though they had won a championship, could never claim that. Phil Mickelson was a Major player before he ever won a Major.

Hurling's no different. In 2001 Tipperary won a championship and seemed destined to become a championship team.

But when Nicky English departed that set-up, so did that aspiration.

Others have filled that vacuum. Cody's Kilkenny. Donal Og's Cork. And Justin's Waterford have tried valiantly too.

Today for them is primarily about securing the best passage possible to an All Ireland final, it's about more than that too. To win a Munster championship the way they did in 2002, to win a Munster championship the way they did in 2004, to contribute to an All Ireland semifinal like they did in 2006, to win the league like they did in 2007, and to then win another Munster championship and reach an All-Ireland final in 2007, then Waterford, by any fair-minded person's standards, have proved themselves as a championship team.

Already they have done things for the game that silverware can never measure. If it weren't for this team, the Munster championship would be a Cork-Tipp duopoly, or, given the state of its Leinster counterpart, probably dead.

By virtue of their crackers against Cork and Tipp . . . in Munster alone . . . they've helped keep the old competition alive.

And when did a hurling side last thrill and move you so much? Not since Offaly, Wexford and Clare were at full throttle in the revolution years, and even some of those sides hardly made use of their licence to thrill as frequently and as fragrantly as Waterford. Just think of Mullane's three goals (and two fingers) in the 2003 Munster final; his five points in Nowlan Park a month later; Flynn's ground stroke that nearly took Donal Og's head off in Thurles in 2005; the beauty of each of their 21 points, especially the one Ken McGrath doubled from midfield, in Ennis that year; the drama of last year's All Ireland semi-final. And that's just keeping it to games they've lost. Justin McCarthy said recently he didn't want to be the manager of "any old team". On that front, he's been hugely successful.

At first they seem an odd pairing, him and the Deise.

He's a pioneer; up until recently, Waterford were known as the hardest partying team in hurling. He's a country boy;

his team, though infused by rural talent, are the last great city inter-county team. He can't send a text; they're of the iPod generation. Yet rarely in hurling history has a team played so much in its coach's image.

Liam Griffin recalls a league game in the late '60s when he was a student hotelier and McCarthy was the leading exponent of, what Griffin has since described as, "sexy hurling ever before anyone dreamed of sexy football". On this particular day McCarthy was wing-back and Griffin, wing-forward, but Griffin was the one who ended up doing the marking. "It was like as if I didn't exist, " laughs Griffin.

"He had no interest in me, just the ball. I'd say I scored three points but he must have scored four or five."

Think about it. A bit loose at the back, especially in the fullback line, but with half-backs great at sweeping, catching and clearing ball; midfielders shooting points from 70 yards without handling the ball;

wing-forwards scoring points underneath the stands; and a large share of their goals coming from someone who can rifle to the net any free within 40 yards of the posts. Remind you of a certain player who used to play for Cork back in the '60s and '70s? If you never saw Justin McCarthy play, well, basically he was Tony Browne, Ken McGrath and Eoin Kelly wrapped into one, with a spice of Paul Flynn's penalty-taking magic thrown into the mix as well.

If McCarthy deserves enormous credit for taking Waterford so far (it's a wonder he's rarely described as the Mick O'Dwyer of hurling, or as he might say, a wonder that O'Dwyer is never called the Justin McCarthy of football), he also has to take some of the stick for why his latest disciples have yet to play in an All Ireland final. It took him until the last game of 2005 to realise Clinton Hennessy was the best goalkeeper in Waterford when it was obvious to everyone else that spring, and that oversight cost Waterford an All Ireland semi-final spot that year. It's taken him five years to come up with a solid fullback line. And too often, his match-day itinerary has been miscalculated.

There's a reason why Waterford always, always perform in Thurles. McCarthy knows the place like the back of his hand, regularly providing the kind of pre-match haven he and Canon O'Brien famously arranged for Cork for the Centenary All Ireland.

But other days the logistics have been a disaster. The side were late arriving for the 2002 All Ireland semi-final. And 2004 league final. And 2004 All Ireland semi-final. And the 2005 qualifier in Ennis. It's not exactly rocket science, getting to the ground in time, yet too often Waterford entered key games with an improper level of anxiety.

He's learned just as his players have matured, on and off the field (If they win it all, considering the new arrivals into the McGrath, Bennett, Flynn, Kelly and Mullane households, this will go down as The Year of the Daddies). They now have their routine for Croke Park. They have their luxury coach. They have their video analysis, their Christmas breaks in New York and prechampionship camps in Portugal just like Kerry last year.

They've realised something Cork copped onto five years earlier; that they're not just hurlers, they're elite athletes.

They even have things and do things Cork should do but don't. In Cork, weight-lifting and goal-setting is optional, with only a handful of players availing of those modules. In Waterford, under Gerry Fitzpatrick's supervision, they're virtually mandatory. They can even choose their own captain. In previous years, for all Waterford have achieved, it wasn't Cork and Kilkenny that was stopping them reaching All Irelands. It was themselves. Cork and Kilkenny were only ways of measuring that internal struggle. Now to beat those championship teams they prepare like a championship team.

Now they're on the verge of becoming one. It's been a painful journey for them. But a great road trip for the rest of us. And the great thing is, their trip isn't over yet.

TIPPERARY STAR EOIN KELLY'S VERDICT Though you have to fancy Waterford, I think it'll be a close game and the tighter Limerick can keep it, the bigger the chance they'll have. Their backs are very physical and overall they're more of a threat after the three matches against us than they would have been had they beaten us the first day. They're match-fit, they're confident, they're full of hunger . . . that's what struck me most about them . . . and they've had a nice two-week break. All in all, they're in a terrific position today.

They've been putting up good scores as well, against us and also against Laois and Offaly in the latter stages of the league. But I feel Waterford are more of a goalscoring team, as they demonstrated against Cork, and are well capable of hitting 2-20. They have top-class scoring forwards in Dan Shanahan, John Mullane and Paul Flynn, and they have ball-carriers in Seamus Prendergast and Michael Walsh. It's a great balance.

Limerick have plenty of momentum behind them but Waterford have been on a roll as well. They've beaten ourselves, Cork, Kilkenny and Cork again in their last four matches, all by no more than the puck of a ball. They've shown that they can get over the winning line first in a tight race. Their morale has to be sky-high as a result.

Put all those factors about Waterford together. Their momentum, their scoring forwards, their balance, their confidence.

That's why I reckon they'll shade it.