The elephant in the room didn’t go unaddressed. Both Liam Cahill and Derek Lyng were asked about their understanding of the margin of victory and each replied, three points. At that point, the official score was still a three-point win for Tipperary, 4-21 to 0-30.
By the time it was officially revised, the managers had long departed and speculation about what Kilkenny thought they had to do in those closing minutes – chase a goal or take their points – intensified.
The fact remains that Tipperary had qualified for a first All-Ireland final in six years and a first Liam MacCarthy climax between them and ancient rivals, Cork.
It was a resounding success for Cahill, who became the first manager in 17 years to take a second county to the All-Ireland hurling final, having brought Waterford there in the ghostly surrounds of the winter championship in the Covid-impacted 2020 season.
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The past 12 months have been a time of recovery for Cahill and Tipperary. An ignominious exit from the Munster championship a year ago, including annihilation by Cork in Thurles, convinced the Tipp manager that he needed to rebuild.
“It’s been difficult to navigate over the last year from my perspective. I won’t deny that – huge change required and it’s starting to come through now and like I said, it’s all down to the players and to be fair, the alignment with our county board off the field as well.
“When you’re trying to create a high-performance environment for players to excel, both [the team and administrators] have to be working together and I think it’s starting to happen now.”
Tipperary had to recover from a dire opening when they scored just once in the opening 14 minutes while conceding 0-8 from a confident and fluid Kilkenny. Fortunately, the one score was a goal by John McGrath.
By half-time they had scored three goals – one for each of the full forwards – and led by four, 3-11 to 0-16. There was still adversity to negotiate and they had to play out the last 15 minutes with 14 men after Darragh McCarthy was yellow-carded for the second time.
“Look, it’s misfortune, the second yellow,” said Cahill. “By the rule book it’s there, as a second yellow. We had no complaints with it at all. Just disappointed for Darragh. He commits to everything.
“I suppose just before that we probably had really discussed getting Oisín [O’Donoghue] in at that time. Lo and behold, Darragh was coming off all right, but we can’t get Oisín in to replace him. It was a bit of a blow at the time but look, I think it really ignited the rest of the players on the field.”
It was the second successive All-Ireland semi-final that Tipperary had to cope a man short, having lost John McGrath against Wexford in 2019.
Michael Breen, a survivor of that afternoon, reflected on the challenge.
“When it went to 14 men, you just have to be that bit smarter and you have to be a little bit braver because you are down a man and your use of the ball has to be a bit better.”
Lyng was in downbeat form after a second successive All-Ireland semi-final defeat. The bright start had promised more and although there was never very much in it, they couldn’t close the gap, even with the man advantage.
“Look, we didn’t use it well enough,” he said. “Simple as that. We weren’t urgent enough in using the spare man better.”
He also acknowledged that the concession of four goals had done the ultimate damage.
“I think when you concede three before half-time, you’re always going to be under pressure. We started the game very well. We were managing the game pretty well to that point and maybe a sense of panic when the first goal went in. I’m not sure.
“Credit to our players. I thought they responded really well, particularly in the second half. It looked like we got control of the game again. But conceding the fourth goal, you’re going to have to do an awful lot to win a semi-final when you concede four.”
