Tennyson: We wanted it more

Kilkenny centre-back John Tennyson reckons his side's sheer desire to wrestle back the the Liam McCarthy Cup from Cork spoke volumes at Croke Park yesterday afternoon.

Tennyson, who made a lightning recovery from a shoulder dislocation to start the game, picked up his first Celtic Cross medal after the 1-16 to 1-13 win.

The Carrickshock clubman, who could make it a double success in next weekend's All-Ireland U21 final, was delighted that the Cats rearguard held the Cork attack to only five points from play.

He said: "It was a great all-round effort from the team, from the forwards down.

"When you see the likes of Sean Óg Ó hAilpín and these lads couldn't get away with the ball at times today, there were two or three Kilkenny players around them, it was fantastic. It gave us all a lift.

"I suppose the Kilkenny defence took a bit of criticism this year maybe from the media," Tennyson added. "(They were) saying maybe there was a lack of pace there. We didn't think we had a lack of pace. We thought it was a myth. We knew that we're all good hurlers.

"Maybe we made some mistakes during the year but we came up today with a game plan. That game plan was to beat Cork and stop their puck-outs and try and stop them getting into a rhythm and we achieved that."

The Cats got top honours for choking the life out of Cork's running game and Tennyson, who only made his championship debut last year, felt that intense tackling and harrying was key to the win.

"Kilkenny never had any time on the ball. It was high-intensity stuff from us. It was an All-Ireland final.

"The teams knew each other well and it was never going to be an open, free-scoring game.

"At the end of the day, we probably deserved it because we wanted it more. We had a high work rate.

"With 10 minutes to go in every other game, Cork were getting the scores to pull away. Today it was us getting those scores, simple as that."

Asked how he coped with his 'bad' shoulder, the 6" 1' defender insisted: "I was worried and I wasn't worried about it. I knew that if I got the first ball things would go all right but then in Kilkenny we have a fantastic panel.

"The last day (against Clare) I came off and Brian Hogan came on and did a fantastic job so it's a team game. If I had come off today, another lad would have come on and done a great job. I'm just happy personally that I finished the match and that we won.

"I thought the year was gone (with the injury against Clare), but then when I gathered my thoughts, I said: 'Kold on a minute now. We could get to the final,' and we've worked so hard.

"It's a panel game now. There's 15 lads on the sideline that put in the same effort that we do but they don't get to show their talents on the field. We do. Lads came on today. Lads came off. That's the way Kilkenny always has been and that's the way it will be. There'll always be hurlers in Kilkenny."