Undoubtedly.

A result that, if it didn't quite tear the arse out of the championship, at any rate deprived us of the All Ireland final the hurling world yearned to see? Certainly. The People's Team the blameless victims of an uncaring and myopic bureaucracy who punished them for winning the Munster championship by forcing them to win it all over again in order to reach Croke Park in September? Patently.

But please try to avoid taking the conceit any further.

Overdoing the poor mouth on Waterford's behalf equates to damning Limerick with faint praise, and faint praise should not be Limerick's lot this week.

On the day, the better team won. As ever, the rest was gossip.

Look, let's not be maudlin here. Had Cork or Kilkenny given up five goals and frittered away 17 wides in an All Ireland semi-final, we'd insist . . . perfectly correctly . . . that they'd got what they deserved.

Possessing personality and tattoos doesn't absolve Waterford from the consequences of their sins of omission and commission. To treat them otherwise is to patronise them, however tempting the urge to feel their pain. They're big boys. They knew the terms and conditions.

And yes, it was tough on the Munster champions to suffer instant expulsion for the crime of losing their first match against a team they'd already beaten, just as it would have been tough . . . or even tougher . . . on them had they lost in the quarter-final to a Cork team who'd already been beaten twice: by Waterford themselves in the provincial semi-final and by Tipperary in the qualifiers. But it's convenient to forget that two years ago Cork's reward for winning the Munster championship was an All Ireland quarterfinal date with a Waterford team who'd already been beaten twice: by Cork themselves in the provincial semi-final and by Clare in the qualifiers.

Didn't hear anyone emoting at length then about the horrific injustice visited upon John Allen's men, did you?

Mention of the 2005 Clare game at Cusack Park is apposite, for it stands as the obvious touchstone in relation to the match seven days ago.

Consider the parallels. The losers scored 0-21 that day and 2-15 last Sunday; their opponents hit 4-14 that day and 5-11 last Sunday; Waterford lost by five points on both occasions. Andrew O'Shaughnessy's first goal last Sunday was a rerun of Diarmuid McMahon's goal in 2005, both players cutting in from the right and kicking on through a rearguard that either failed to lay a glove on them, in McMahon's case, or else, in O'Shaughnessy's, was nonexistent. Far from going baldheaded for the latter once he'd twirled around Aidan Kearney and in the process happily risking the concession of a free and a yellow card, not one Waterford defender materialised to interpose his body between the corner-forward and Clinton Hennessy.

Bizarre, unbelievable . . . but precedented. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

Game and hardy campaigner that he is, Declan Prendergast is neither safe enough in the air nor mean enough on the ground to make an exclusion zone of his goalmouth. Of the 12 goals Waterford conceded in the 2007 championship, half were sourced in their failure to adequately defend bog-standard high balls coming in from out the field. The boss man . . . and if readers have an irrefutable case for proposing how and why the coach's departure would help Waterford, the Tribune would like to hear them advance it . . . is probably even now filling out the form for the lonely hearts' column in the Munster Express. Desperately seeking big boy to fill important position. Must be good in the air. Pleasant disposition not necessary. Canvassing, offering of quarter and taking of prisoners will disqualify. CV, references and DVD footage to Justin Mac, PO Box 1966, Rochestown, Cork.

The obvious explanation for Sunday's defeat is that, both mentally and physically sapped by their efforts against Cork, Waterford reverted to sloppy type. One observer witnessing the lack of fizz at training the Tuesday before had been struck by the contrast with the atmosphere the previous Tuesday, two days after their Cork jailbreak. Add in John Mullane's recent ineffectiveness, allegedly the result of a viral infection, Seamus Prendergast's dip in form between the Munster semi and the closing quarter last Sunday, Tony Browne's occasional raggedness, the wides, the Limerick goals and that awful point leaked to James O'Brien in the 59th minute, when two Waterford players stood gawking as the substitute rose unhindered for the puckout moments after Eoin Kelly had reduced the gap to two. Seven minutes from time a deficit that had once stood at 10 points was down to the minimum. Waterford made a balls of a number of things on Sunday, but emphatically they didn't choke.

Yet if losing one All Ireland semi-final is understandable, how can losing five out of five be neatly tied up? Waking up too late (1998), waking up too early (2002), committing defensive hara-kiri in the first half ('04), falling barely short ('06), fatigue ('07)? We cannot be groping around for a fresh excuse with which to exculpate Waterford. And for Eoin Kelly's eighth-minute wide, hooked beyond the far upright from under the Hogan Stand with Seamus Prendergast and Paul Flynn waiting inside, there was no absolution. Had they learned nothing from their wides of a fortnight earlier? Had the management not bet the perils of reflex glory-hunting into Kelly? Or at least tried to?

Not for the first time, one is left to reflect that Waterford would never have hacked it in stand-up comedy, that calling where the trick is located in the timing. Clare and Wexford got theirs right a decade ago, their boom coinciding with recession on Leeside and Noreside. Waterford, bless them, happened on the scene at the precise moment that Cork and Kilkenny were busy not merely winning All Irelands but winning them back to back. You'd hate to be the coursing man that owned Waterford's canine equivalent.

Good but unlucky: a deadly combination.

The assertion that the Deise will never again have the planets in such joyous symphony as they had this summer is as unavoidable as it is easy. They could lay claim to the most promising newcomer of the first half of the season in Aidan Kearney; the most promising newcomer of the second half in Stephen Molumphy (from how many parishes away did Molumphy scamper upfield to get the touch for his goal, incidentally? ); the best righthalf back, give or take that chap from Tullaroan; the best centre-back by some distance; an outstanding captain and midfield leader in Michael Walsh; SuperDan, the Hurler of the Year; and in Eoin McGrath an impact sub who was exactly that in three of their championship outings. If Paul Flynn takes his leave, he should be the only leading name to do so; Browne is a 34-year-old in the body of a 22-year-old.

As an aside, it ought not be forgotten that Arsenal reached the Champions League final not in their 2004 annus mirabilis of domestic invincibility but two seasons later. Sometimes one knows not the day nor the hour.

Besides, Waterford will do themselves a disservice if they attempt to inter the season's good with last Sunday's bones.

They won the county's first national title in 44 years and did so by mugging Kilkenny . . .Kilkenny . . . in the last five minutes. They won a no-win provincial semi-final against a depleted Cork. They won the Munster title. They came back from four points down with as many minutes left to draw with Cork in the All Ireland quarter-final and beat them in the replay. They met Cork five times in league and championship and they didn't lose once. They've inherited Munster's title as the nation's most popular team. They'll receive more All Stars come November than All Ireland semi-finalists can normally dream of.

They don't have to count their blessings but they shouldn't spurn them.

On the day they got what they deserved. Over the course of the championship they didn't. Stuff, as the man said, happens. They'll live.

They'll travel to Nowlan Park next Saturday to run the rule over Shane Casey in the intermediate final. They'll try again, even though they'll never fail better.

Their best chance of All Ireland glory may have evaporated. Their last chance has not. There's another three years in this crowd.