Beaming Sheedy still on cloud nine

GAELIC GAMES/ALL-IRELAND HURLING FINAL:IN THE usual mayhem of the All-Ireland winners' hotel – as players, supporters and various other hangers-on wake up to the morning after – we seek out Liam Sheedy for some serious questioning: what was his plan we want to know, the big difference about this year, which allowed his team do what other Tipperary teams have failed to do since 2001?

“We won,” says Sheedy, and cracks an enormous smile.

The Tipperary manager is in that kind of mood, and who could blame him. Sheedy had stood in almost exactly the same spot of the Burlington Hotel lobby this time last year, having lost the All-Ireland final to Kilkenny, and while his mood then was obviously contrasting, it also made him realise, made him extra determined, to experience the flip side.

“This is a great feeling,” he adds, “because this time last year we were sinking, really disappointed, after losing the final. This now makes it all worthwhile.

“But we never really talked about last year’s final. We didn’t really have to. We were very disappointed after Munster this year. It was soul-searching time, because we were so disappointed. We just knew that it wasn’t our form. Thankfully, they turned it around. I didn’t turn it around. They turned it around. Every one of the 33 lads on the panel, and I am so proud of them.”

Still, it can’t have been easy to convince himself or his team that Tipperary would win on Sunday, not when practically everyone else in the country was convinced Kilkenny would win, and in the process capture that elusive fifth All-Ireland in succession. Sheedy puts on a serious face for a moment, and says that after losing the final last year he didn’t just think Tipperary could win this year, he believed it.

“I have huge belief in this group,” he says, “huge trust in this family. I just knew the lads, and I knew by the looks on their faces in that losing dressingroom last year. So I think my aim all year was to win the semi-final, because I felt if we won the semi-final, no one would stop us in the final. Kilkenny are a super team, but I knew if our guys got back into that arena, after what happened last year, they wouldn’t leave it go.”

And so it proved. The question now is how soon Sheedy will turn his thoughts to next year, assuming, of course, he intends staying in charge for a fourth year? “We aren’t going to get into that now,” he says, rightly so. “Now is a time for enjoyment.

“It’s a proud day to be a Tipperary man and I’m delighted.”

Also in the hotel lobby is Sheedy’s willing, able and brilliant captain, Eoin Kelly, so we approach him with same question: what did Kelly think was the difference for Tipperary this year?

“The hurt,” he says. “The hurt of having lost the last eight years, through various Munster championships and that. And for the whole panel. Like the guys who came off the bench they were massive. The guys contributed two or three points. People were maybe modest a few years ago, when they said you need a squad, but you really do. The intensity in that first 15 or 20 minutes was unbelievable. Lads couldn’t finish a game, but our subs came on and done the job.

“So it makes this that bit extra special. When we won in 2001 some of us were only young fellas and we didn’t truly understand it.”

Indeed Kelly was still only 19 when Tipperary last won the senior All-Ireland hurling title, in 2001. If he was told then he’d have to wait another nine years to win it again he would hardly have believed it, and so has every reason to appreciate this one for all its worth. Given the Tipperary panel has eight under-21 players in the mix the future would appear to look brighter than ever, although as Kelly knows, success at a young age doesn’t guarantee continued success.

“It is a young team,” he says, “but you can’t just say that success is certain to come. Kilkenny have shown the ability to stay focused from one year to the next and I think that is the challenge for us. In any big sport, the top teams focus on the next game, and that’s it. The next game, never mind what is going to happen next year.

“If you think too about James Woodlock, Pat Kerwick, Paul Kelly, players that were in the thick of it last year, and injured this year. So who knows what is going to happen in the next three, four or five months? It’s the next game, and that is what you focus on.”

As it happens, the next game for those eight under-21s is Saturday’s All-Ireland final, against Galway, in Thurles. Kelly agrees that success there is all part of plan for further senior success in the future: “If we can win the under-21 All-Ireland it will give us more positives, and more belief. Because this feeling, you want it again and again and again.”