In hurling there are numbers to describe everything now. It supports the illusion of order. Nobody has any truck with ignorance. There must be reasons. But the soul of the game is chaos, madness, imperfection and the things you do when your brain is on fire. Clare and Limerick came to Croke Park with notions about control and they were thrashed. It was a glorious failure.At last, the summer gave us something to make our heads spin. Something delirious.In the chaos, every possibility had a life. Limerick reached their sixth All-Ireland final of the John Kiely era, but only after they looked leaden and withered and beaten – and only after they had rejected all of those things. They were the only team that scored in the last 13 minutes, yet they trailed when the match clock turned red.Winners write the story. The goal that shattered Clare was a cocktail of load-bearing plays. Cian Lynch put his hand to a Clare puck-out and kept the ball alive through a sniper’s alley of tacklers. When it reached Adam English the arrowed ball that he played towards the Clare goal was less than a pass, but it was so beautifully flighted that by the time it reached Aidan O’Connor it was no higher than the toss for a serve.[ Limerick seize the day to reach another final and leave resurgent Clare heartbroken ]For the only time in the game, a Limerick player was one-on-one in front of the Clare goal; once was enough.All summer, Clare had diced with bankruptcy, but they recovered almost everything in defeat here. The ferocious tackling and mulish desire that had characterised their best seasons under Brian Lohan returned in a flood. In Ennis a couple of months ago Limerick had bullied Clare and you can imagine how the tumour of that humiliation had grown in their minds. On Sunday, they swarmed Limerick with livid aggression and that energy was like a halo around the team.Clare's Peter Duggan is fouled by Nickie Quaid of Limerick. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/INPHO It was the most rattled that Limerick had been since they collapsed in a heap against Dublin on their last visit to Croke Park, nearly 13 months ago. There was one 90-second period early in the game when they lost possession three times over the sideline. Twice in the first half Gearóid Hegarty was bundled out of play. It was like Limerick had lost touch with their central nervous system.Clare went after them in the middle third, which has been Limerick’s domain throughout their imperial years. In that area of the field, they coughed up 16 turnovers; in attack they surrendered 15 turnovers. All of it was psychological capital. Limerick’s game is built on possession and how it builds with smart investment.Clare, though, played hell with that. All over the field they turned the game into a fight. On puck-outs they overloaded on one wing or the other and trusted in Peter Duggan to make the first contact with the dropping ball. They weren’t looking for clean out-balls or the most favourable percentages: they came to knock Limerick over. It was the championship reduced to its flaming essence.They so nearly pulled it off. With 59 minutes on the clock Mark Rodgers missed a free from a central position to put Clare six points ahead and within a minute O’Connor had landed a free at the other end. In that exchange momentum shifted a little.Limerick never stop. They are not looking for the path of least resistance. Aaron Gillane was taken off for the second game in a row, Dan Morrissey was cleaned out by Tony Kelly in the first half, Darragh O’Donovan had his least effective game of the year at centrefield, Clare’s match-ups were risky and imaginative and they forced Limerick to scramble. And yet Limerick fought on their backs. They kept going because there was no other way back.They will be favourites for the All-Ireland hurling final against Galway, but it is far from a done deal. For the scale of their reinvention, Galway have been the story of the summer. On Saturday they returned to the All-Ireland final for the first time since Limerick made their breakthrough in 2018, the reunion that nobody expected.Galway selector Francis Forde celebrates with Ronan Glennon after Saturday's semi-final win over Cork. Photograph: James Crombie/INPHO How far have they come? From the middle of nowhere. When Tipperary beat them by eight points in the quarter-final last June, only a fluky last-minute goal saved them from their fifth double-digit beating of the year. They looked disjointed and disorientated, and it felt like they had bottomed out. Ground Zero, though, can be an elusive destination. Cork are still searching for it.Galway had reached a point where the only meaningful change was radical change. In their style of play, Galway went from a combover to a Mohican. It was nothing like the All-Ireland winning team that Micheál Donoghue and Franny Forde had shaped a decade ago; instead of stacking their forward line with big men and releasing the ball early, they stripped out their forward line and fashioned a team that attacked from deep.Ideologically, it was a complete pivot. To bring that plan to life they needed a dressingroom of open minds, and the energy that only freshness can bring. Of the team that torpedoed Cork on Saturday, only eight started in the Gaelic Grounds last summer. The transformation has been extraordinary.What they needed, too, was absolute buy-in. When the pressure ramped up on Saturday, and Galway were on the end of a 10-point swing in the second quarter, they didn’t blink. There is no busking in that system; everyone’s hands are on the oars, pulling in sync.Limerick will have no margin for error.