O’Shea keeps cards close to his chest

Tipperary 2-19 Clare 0-20

His team might have won, on the road — only the second time they ever have in the league on his beat — but by his own admission he wasn’t going to view what had just transpired as a “battle won” or even fought.

His tone afterwards to reporters was as flippant as it was stoical. When you reach a league final in your first year, then don’t win a championship game that summer; or when you, the following year, within an injury-time puck of a ball of facing a relegation playoff and still end up almost winning the same league and the All-Ireland, the league and life can make you that way.