Belief: Davy Fitzgerald's arrival in Waterford has turned out to be a honeymoon made in heaven inpho

Moments after the final whistle sounded last Sunday, RTE cut to a shot of Donie Mac Giolla Chúda, the man on their camera number one and a native of Rinn O gCuanach, dressed in his Waterford jersey, arms aloft in jubilation in his eyrie in the upper deck of the Hogan Stand. Two years ago, operating the same camera, Donie had just concluded from the trajectory of Ken McGrath's injury-time free in the All Ireland semi-final that it would clear the crossbar and send the game to a replay when Donal Óg Cusack reached up to save the day for Cork. This time around there was no near-miss and no heartbreak.

It was, finally, the consummation so long and so devoutly wished for, and one with fringe benefits to boot. Kilkenny/Tipperary would have been a final for the hurling world; Kilkenny/Waterford will be a final for the nation. An event, not just a game, with Waterford carrying the hopes and goodwill of the neutrals to a degree Tipperary wouldn't have.

Call it serendipity, call it simpatico, but this is turning out to be a honeymoon made in heaven. In a contest to find the maddest man in hurling, neither Davy Fitz nor some of his players would be in any danger of getting left at the starting gate. At the final whistle on Sunday he and John Mullane fell to the ground wrapped around one another. That would never have happened under the previous manager. Davy is one of the lads in a way that Justin never was and never wanted to be.

But he's more than that. Restoring McGrath to centre-back, a tacit admission that the experiment at full-back had failed, was a move that wouldn't have been countenanced by a more stubborn management team. The current regime's attention to detail isn't in doubt either; in training beforehand the B team had worn Tipperary jerseys, while the decision to travel up by train on Saturday and stay in Ashbourne overnight – they'd contemplated flying up on the morning of the match – was their way of not only obviating the kind of potential unforeseeable logistical problems that had bedevilled Waterford on semi-final day in the past but also generally taking the hassle out of Sunday morning.

What worked once may not necessarily work again. There's an obvious danger that some heads could explode from the pressure between now and 7 September. Yet there's also the possibility that Waterford will surf the inevitable tsunami of hype because they won't be caught up in it to the extent they would have been had they reached the final last year, after being atop a wave since late April. If anything, the next fortnight should be seen as a window of opportunity. How much did Stephen Molumphy improve for having an uninterrupted training schedule during the three weeks leading up to the semi-final? By how much more will he improve for the following three weeks? And Brick Walsh? And Kevin Moran?

One word will suffice to thumbnail the Tipp end of matters. Inexperience. Two or three years down the line they'll come to the same fork in the road they arrived at in the closing 10 minutes on Sunday and this time they'll know how to take the correct route. An older Seamus Callinan will pop a similar opportunity over the bar instead of going for glory. An older Pat Kerwick will drop a similar opportunity short instead of going for glory. They'll live and they'll learn.

Besides, if we grant Henry Shefflin bail on the basis of previous accurate behaviour for the handy late free he missed in the 2006 All Ireland final, we cannot condemn Eoin Kelly for blinking from that 65'. And while Lar Corbett's miss was clearly the worst of the lot and will probably end up costing him an All Star, it's simplistic to say that Micheál Webster was betrayed by a combination of slow hands and a footballing heritage; the rebound from Callinan's shot was not easy to scoop out from under his feet.

Webster would have had ample reason to complain for his under-employment, mind. Unlike two years ago, when they left it till the last few minutes to send the Loughmore-Castleiney man on in the Munster final and let him and Diarmuid O'Sullivan get on with the job of trying to strangle one another under the dropping ball, here Tipp brought him on in plenty of time but neglected to sling the sliotar in on top of him. File under Offences against the Big Lad on the Edge of the Square Act and ascribe, again, to inexperience.

What will gall the Munster champions above all, however, is not so much the fact that they played poorly as the fact that they played poorly, obtained a minimal-to-negligible return from four of their forwards, still hit 1-18 and only lost by two points.

They'll know now that they're not as far down the road as they imagined eight days ago and may suspect that the last mile will prove the hardest mile. But they'll also know that Liam Sheedy's first year has been highly successful and hugely encouraging. They can be pretty confident too that standing looking at underperforming forwards for an inordinate length of time is a mistake the management will not be repeating.

In the end, Tipp came as far as they were entitled to and as far as was good for them – considerably better for them, it might be added, than the very real risk of being vacuumed up into the engines of a jumbo jet next month. These semi-final things take time. Ask Donie Mac Giolla Chúda.