Tracking rebels’ rise

Jamie Coughlan felt like as if they could keep running forever.

Their league semi-final in Semple Stadium was entering the last quarter, Eoin Kelly had just buried a 20-metre free to edge Tipperary back in front and from afar it looked as if a puppish young Cork team may have run their race. Among themselves, within themselves, their outlook couldn’t have been more different. When Jimmy Barry-Murphy had met the Kildare-based physical trainer David Matthews last autumn, he told him he wanted his new young team to less resemble elephants or pups and be more like greyhounds. And that’s the animal they felt like in Thurles that time: greyhounds that could have been as easily running in the track across the road. They knew they had what Coughlan calls “this extra kick” and that kick would see them blitz 1-7 to 0-1 past Tipp in the closing stretch.

“The fitness levels that came out the last day in the final 10 minutes were unbelievable,” says Coughlan. “Lads were just hopping. In nearly all our matches this year you’d be flying for the first 40 minutes, maybe flatten out for five or 10 minutes and then driving on again. I’ve never been as fit as I am this year.”