Corbett looks back and admits hype may have hit final hopes
After putting seven goals past Waterford in the Munster final and winning the 2010 decider against the Cats, Tipperary were fancied to retain the Liam MacCarthy Cup.
But speaking in RTÉ’s Kilkenny v Tipperary — The Trilogy to be broadcast tonight, last year’s Hurler of the Year acknowledges the Munster champions might have been affected by the hype surrounding Declan Ryan’s set-up.
“Definitely the Tipperary supporter they’d give you a little bit better chance than what you think you should be entitled to,” said Corbett.
“Maybe, did we listen to it a small, little bit? Maybe. We were trying to keep our feet on the ground and I wouldn’t believe our feet weren’t on the ground but maybe we were a little bit confident.”
That expectation was in sharp contrast to Kilkenny where, as opposed to the previous year when the five-in-a-row hype enveloped the county, the public kept away from Brian Cody’s players.
As Tommy Walsh says: “I think people just said that they’d leave us alone and let us quietly get on with our work. It seems, looking back now, it must have been a huge help.”
Describing this year’s final victory as the best (“so far”) of Kilkenny’s eight All-Ireland titles won under him, Cody explains it was made all the sweeter by how much “uncertainty” had surrounded the future of the team.
“We were trying to do something very, very difficult. The whole sense of the league final display against Dublin, a game we wanted to win and tried to win and were just blown away in that game.
“There was a real sense of ‘is the team finished?’, and a real, genuine sense of concern from our own supporters; supporters who would value the team massively and want the team to win so, so badly; and a fear that maybe the team’s winning days were over to an extent.
“This year there was a whole sense of wonder about the whole thing and for it to come together so well and for such a display it’s without a shadow of a doubt the sweetest one of them all.”
Echoing Cody, Henry Shefflin, who had more reason than most to enjoy this year’s triumph after a recurrence of his cruciate injury in the 2010 final, adds: “It meant so much to us because people just thought we were gone.”
Cody has a playful dig at Shefflin for starting the process that led to Michael Fennelly’s goal in the first half.
“He [Fennelly] got a terrific goal which lifted the whole team. Very, very strange, I think Henry was involved in the sideline cut which I would always advise Henry to stay well away from because I don’t think it’s his forte at all. But he did what he was good at — he gave a short one.”
Tipperary goalkeeper Cummins also lifts the lid on just how desolate their dressing room was afterwards.
“There’s silence and all you can hear is the fan in the dressing room, that gentle hum, and you’re going, ‘I want it back, I want another chance’. But it’s just gone.”
The programme gets the views of Cody, Shefflin, Walsh, Jackie Tyrrell, Cummins and Corbett on the 2010 and 09 finals, with Cummins effusive in his praise of the Tipperary management in those two years.
“It was like a drug working with these fellas. You just wanted to get training every night. If we could have trained every night of the week with [coach] Eamonn O’Shea we would have, to be fair.”
As much as Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row hopes were dashed by Tipperary, Walsh didn’t reconcile the idea of them going for it with the previous GAA inter-county that had attempted to complete the feat.
As he explains: “Looking at the Kerry Golden Years, they lost the five-in-a-row and it was disappointing looking at that and saying, ‘Jaysus, isn’t it a pity they didn’t win one more match just to do the five?’ “When we nearly did it then, it just wasn’t the same. I never thought of it as a five-in-a-row. I think on the day we were just beaten by the better team.”
Tyrrell admits he never believed Shefflin was going to play the entire 70 minutes so he refuses to blame the injury as a reason for the defeat.
“It was a loss for us but in the grand scheme of things I don’t think it would have changed the result.”
Similarly, Corbett didn’t feel Benny Dunne’s sending off in the 2009 All-Ireland final had much of an impact in Tipperary losing their lead and ultimately the game.
“We still got a couple of scores after that. The big decision was Martin Comerford coming on and getting the ball and getting the goal.”
Cummins maintains Richie Power was fouled outside the parallelogram for the penalty which Shefflin converted.
“While it was a game-changer, we had enough chances. We had only ourselves to blame, really.”
Cody quips about Shefflin’s taking of the penalty: “Henry being Henry, he didn’t look to the sideline for any guidance as to what he should do or anything like that.
“If he had looked he wouldn’t have got any guidance anyway because I would never suggest what you should do with those penalties.”
* Kilkenny v Tipperary — The Trilogy is on RTÉ 2 at 8.30 tonight.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
