'I never flinched at any stage on the line once he was across my chest' - Liam Cahill
LET’S START AT the end, for a change.
At the post-match press briefing, Michael Breen chatted for a bit. Then Liam Cahill. Then Jason Forde.
Liam Cahill said his bit and fancied escaping the vacuum of craic that is the GAA press corps and getting in among the yahoo-ing and cheering again of the dressing room. But he wanted to finish like a good Joe Dolan gig – leave ‘em sweating.
So he thanked the media gathered there for all the support over the previous twelve months.
A little background to the final pay-off line. At one point when things were going very badly for Tipp, the sports editor of the Nenagh Guardian, Shane Brophy, asked him after a match if he was the man to lead Tipperary forward.
Cahill didn’t like the question and there was a tense few moments, caught on camera and recycled on social media. Later, he called up Brophy to do a two-hour sitdown interview with him back in February.
But he finished up his gratitude; “And it’s great to be back this year,” he said with a thumbs up to a delighted and content Brophy.
Liam MacCarthy in the bag a year after Shane Brophy, and perhaps all of Tipperary outside of Cahill’s family and the majority of players – you’ll never keep all of the panel entirely happy – felt this man hadn’t a rashers what he was at. It has to be the sweetest All-Ireland ever. Enough to rot every tooth in your head.
“It was about bringing back a bit of identity to our play,” Cahill explained.
“2024, we just didn’t contest in the jersey the way we should have. I keep saying that and I’m not going to go there after today because for me it’s in the past now.
“We started at a very low base, all of us, management, the whole support team, players. And we just started to go game by game, bit by bit, and suddenly these younger players really started to integrate into the more seasoned players.
“Suddenly you had serious options and then the momentum of our under-20s winning the All-Ireland and it starts to take off. I’m just very, very fortunate to be from Tipperary and to have the talented group of players that were there.”
He adds, “Look, we’ve arrived now. It’s easy I suppose to be the hunter going after teams and now it’s going to turn to us being the hunted so it’s going to see a different side to management and our prep and our mindset going into next year, which is not for now.”
On the way up to Croke Park, a text landed with Cahill from Dan Quirke, father of the late Dillon Quirke, wishing the team of his son, good luck. He responded by saying that Dillon would be on their shoulders this day, regardless of the result.
“He should be with us today,” adds Cahill, “but the legacy he’s leaving and the work that he’s doing to save lives across Ireland at the moment through his name and the foundation is just incredible.
“And today I never flinched at any stage on the line once he was across my chest, I knew that we would be battling right to the end. I’m just so proud to have had an input into his life for the for the short number of years he was with us.”
Perhaps that’s a point that is rarely considered in all of this. For a great number of players on the Tipperary panel, Dillon Quirke was one of their closest friends. When you lose somebody like that in your life, the body keeps the score.
It can affect you in many ways. Your appetite for hurling might take a while to return as it used to. But now it’s back.
Playing a sweeper in hurling is somehow regarded as being conservative. But used in the right way, it allows teams to play with even more aggression. Cahill is not a backward-step kinda guy. If he was, he might have held Darragh McCarthy on the bench, given his two red cards this season.
Instead, the kid hits 1-13 including a penalty in his first All-Ireland final. At just 19.
“That’s the class of the man,” says Cahill.
“You know, we produce legendary players like Jason and Eoin Kelly and Callanan and all these. And some of them, they can’t be hanging around forever and you’ll say where are you going to find the next one out? And suddenly up pops McCarthy, 19 years of age – he’s now arrived on the scene.
“But from a serious club up there in Toomevara – them fellas up there would eat you alive. So, there was never going to be a case of Darragh’s character being questioned or he doubting himself.
“He just loves his hurling. And when you love hurling like that, you get your rewards – and he got his just reward today and I’m really, really happy for him.”
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