Ian O'Riordanhears from devastated Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy and top scorer Eoin Kelly, who vows the team will return to make amends

IT WAS bad enough that Liam Sheedy had to face us just minutes after losing one of the best All-Ireland hurling finals in years, so narrowly, so painfully, so crushingly – and worse still that we had to remind him just how close he’d come to orchestrating a classic upset. In moments like this, a man in Sheedy’s position probably deserves to mourn with a little privacy.

Instead, he sinks into the empty chair in front of our table of dictaphones, a little red-faced, barely concealing the tears, and his heart, or what was left of it, somewhere down his sleeve. We all felt this result would haunt Tipperary for weeks to come. God knows how Sheedy must have felt.

“I’m hurting. I’m hurting . . . But proud,” he started. “I felt the lads really gave it everything. We just needed a goal at some stage to really kick on, push on. We’d one or two chances, but found PJ Ryan on a very good day today.

“But these lads have done everything I’ve asked of them in last eight months, everything I could possible want them to. So to just come up short is very, very disappointing. We knew we were facing the best team in probably the history of the game.

“It’s always hard to make history, and these Kilkenny guys have done it today. So I take my hat off to them. But every one of our lads worked their socks off. That’s all we asked for and that’s exactly what we got.”

Only when we start probing through the finer details does Sheedy reveal his true hurt; over the penalty that he feels Tipp were unlucky to concede; for the effort of his players; and for way things ended up for Benny Dunne. But if we’re looking for a turning point, he says, look at the penalty, not the sending off.

“You know, we were up 0-21 to 0-19, and I’ve just watched it again. It was a big call. Matches are won on big calls. Looking at it, it was a tight call. It was probably the changing of the game. And anyone count the steps? It was a turning point, make no mistake about it.

“These are big calls. The day you get the calls is the day you probably win the match. I would be of the opinion that we were unlucky to have it given against us. It was always going to be tough after that, with the man down. And I thought the 10 minutes hurling that we played before that penalty was absolutely superb, and as a Tipperary man, I would be very proud of those lads.

“Benny was misfortunate. I feel for him. I know that guy is really hurting. He’s been the pulse of that team in the last 20 minutes in the four games to date.

“He’s been brilliant. But that wasn’t the turning point, because the other 14 definitely went up a notch, after Benny was unfortunately dismissed. We were beaten by five points, in the end, and Kilkenny were finishing really strong. The second goal was the one that hurt . . . ”

At that point Eoin Kelly enters the room and takes the empty seat next to Sheedy, a little red-faced, barely concealing the tears. Before he starts, Sheedy pays tribute to his men, all the while nodding towards Kelly alongside him.

“These boys will win All-Irelands,” he declares. “We just came up that little bit short today. We didn’t come up here to come short. We matched their intensity right throughout the field. But we came up short in last year’s semi-final and learnt from it. The challenge for all of us is to put ourselves back in the position to be challenging for this big prize again next year.”

Most players who hit 0-13 on All-Ireland final day would expect to end up in the winner’s quotes, but instead Kelly also found himself trying to put words on the sorrow of this defeat, and again he did it with pride.

“We probably got two real goal chances, and PJ Ryan made two brilliant saves. I did slip a little, and it fell a little short, with my chance. Kilkenny also got two clear-cut goal chances, and took them both. They won by five points, so that definitely was the difference.

“So I would have to compliment them. They made history today. In every way they fought and battled hard and none of them complained. It was a good, hard physical game, and their experience ultimately told I suppose. And those two goals in quick succession. Against Kilkenny, goals will win games, and we were unlucky not to get one or two today. And that’s very disappointing.”

Kelly felt they’d put themselves in the position to win, before Dunne’s sending off, then the penalty, saw things fall apart. He says he needs to see the penalty again before making his mind up on that, but he’d already made his mind up about Dunne.

“There are 35 of us on this panel. All united. No one will be pointing the finger at anybody. We stuck together the last 18 months We’re united, a 35-strong squad of players, we’re on the right road.

“We’re hoping that we’ll learn from our mistakes, and drive on. And, come January, we’ll knuckle down again and prepare for 2010 the same way we did this year.

“That’s probably the only positive we can take from it right now. And that bit of experience, of being in the losing dressing-room after an All-Ireland. Believe me it’s horrible. You don’t want to be there again.

“We had massive belief coming into this. Not only with the training we’d done this week, but the past 18 months. It had us geared towards big-game performances. So the belief was there. It was just the couple of chances we didn’t take. And the couple of chances Kilkenny did that swung it in their favour. I just think the two goals were the bridge too far for us to peg back. The quick succession of goals. That was the killer.

“We were in a great position. We went two or three points up in the second half, and looking back now, it’s a pity we didn’t drive on more, maybe go four clear.

“Kilkenny’s experience, coming up the field, getting their penalty, scoring their penalty. A quick goal after that . . . You just have to say fair play to Kilkenny.”

This was always going to be a learning experience for what is such a young team, and Kelly reminded us of that.

“If the hard work is put in like it was the last 18 months, which I know it will be, then we’ll be back. Because there are some serious characters in that dressing-room. There’s youth mixed with experience, a united group.

“All we want is for Tipperary to be successful. We’re going to stick together for the next 12 months, until we get that ultimate prize, which just deserted us there today.”

You can’t argue with that.