Tom Kenny: Cork never got the scores after half-time to force Tipp to change their system

He has lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup as a Cork player and knows that special feeling of winning an All-Ireland title.

But he also knows what it feels like to lose big games and as Tom Kenny said afterward, there was no way that Cork thought the game was over at half time even when six points ahead.

Reflecting on the game, and in particular Cork’s second half, he felt that before the break, Tipp were showing signs of clicking.

“You know, as a player, you'd never stray into the territory of thinking the game was won. You know that you've 35 minutes of hurling to go out and play,” said Tom.

“Playing against a team like Tipperary, who were beginning to kind of show signs of clicking in the game that, regardless of how much they were up, regardless of the goal before half-time, that you know you have a job to do you.

“There was still 35 minutes to be played and unfortunately sometimes sports is like that. 

They came out for the second half and Cork had a free, unfortunately that went wide and Tipp just took off from there.

“We hit the post three times, hit the crossbar and you know it was just incredible. It's hard to analyse right in this moment, players don't go out to play a performance like that in the second half.

“You can't point fingers at the players, they would have went out with the intention of doing well and keeping the foot on the gas and keep playing.

“We all spoke about Shane Barrett's goal and how fantastic it was before half time.

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“But you know, maybe subconsciously, somewhere deep down within the psyche of the players and the management that maybe relaxed them a small bit. You don't know and it's hard to analyse.”

On the flip side, massive credit must to go to Tipp for that second half showing and Kenny said that the players and Liam Cahill deserve great praise for what they did.

“They were playing with a spare man in defence, and you might think they could have changed it. But they still stuck with that system for the first 10-12 minutes in the second half. I suppose at that stage then when they got ahead, they were afforded the luxury that if they worked hard they were going to win the game.

“But credit to Cahill for sticking with his plan, if Cork went and got an early goal or a couple of points, then he would have to deviate from that plan and the whole game would have opened up.

It didn't happen, he stuck to his guns and it paid off for him. 

"He's had fair success as an underage manager with Tipp as well, minor and U20/21 against a lot of these Cork players and unfortunately that came back to haunt us again today.”

Kenny also said that no doubt Eoin Downey will be disappointed with the sending off but he didn’t think it would have changed the result in any way.

“I think the game was beyond Cork at that stage, maybe they might have thought about bringing Damien Cahalane on at half time, but I don’t think you can fault any single player for that loss and the sending off had no bearing on the final result.”