Ryan so proud of Rebel spirit levels

Eamonn Ryan’s philosophy is more straightforward than you’d imagine for a manager who has orchestrated nine All-Ireland final victories in 10 years.

“You do your best as much as you can, and hopefully it comes right,” Ryan says, with a smile from ear to ear, before remarking: “It took a while to come right today.”

Cork’s victory, or indeed, their comeback effort, was not built on any tactical masterclass handed down by management; there was no blanket defence employed, no rigid regime. Each player simply put their shoulder to the wheel, exhausting every available avenue of energy and effort until the hooter sounded shortly after quarter past five yesterday evening.

Take the searing runs of Bríd Stack, Briege Corkery and Geraldine O’Flynn, the latter’s interception of Sinéad Goldrick’s attempted pass to provide the platform from which Cork gained parity three minutes from the end. Throw in the relentless foraging of Valerie Mulcahy in front of goal, ploughing as she did a lone furrow for the entire first half. Each player, gave all they could offer and eventually did the pendulum swing in their direction.

“That is from non-stop training,” Ryan said of the team’s unflinching character.

“You take Geraldine [O’Flynn] who had kicked a few awful wides — like I have kicked myself — and still popped up and stuck the winner. That takes fair character. Even to have the guts to do it.”

“We seem to be lucky because as the players get older, they groom the younger ones, ensure they do not get big-headed and ensure they do not believe that minor All-Ireland glory will translate into senior glory. They impress the fact that this is serious business. That was serious business out there.”

Substitutes Rhona Ní Bhuachalla and Eimear Scally delivered the 2-1 which effectively resurrected Cork’s title bid and the winning manager was in no doubt that those sprung from the bench had played the greatest role in securing victory.

“At the start of the second half, I thought we were in serious trouble, when we went 10 points down. At that stage, we decided to rotate as many players as possible and to their eternal credit, people who must have been sorely disappointed at being left out came on and forgot their own disappointment and played out of their skins for the sake of the common good.

“The experience of those who came in was part of it but it was more their effort, their attitude.”

Was this the greatest comeback of the lot? “It’s as good a comeback as has been seen on that field for a while... they are all sweet, I couldn’t distinguish between them.

“Today there was huge relief. But then the last time when we beat Dublin in 2009 we had the ball for one minute and 36 seconds and held onto it. That was relief. When Monaghan missed the free at the end of last year’s final, that was relief. We have won a total of four All-Ireland’s by six points. It is a testament to the characters of the players. It is relief rather than euphoria.”