Hannah Tyrrell treasures memories she can look back on with daughter Aoife

Tyrrell won the Player of the Match award for Sunday's All Ireland final victory and celebrated afterwards with baby daughter, Aoife

AMAZING MEMORIES: Player of the match Hannah Tyrrell of Dublin celebrates with her daugher Aoife, age 7 weeks, alongside the Brendan Martin Cup. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Until last weekend, Hannah Tyrrell might have questioned her poor timing as a Dublin footballer.

She had initially left the group in 2014 to play rugby so missed out on the four-in-a-row years, between 2017 and 2020. Then, when she returned in 2021, she ran into a green and gold machine.

Meath ended Dublin's bid for the five-in-a-row that season and the Royals regained the Brendan Martin Cup in 2022 while Dublin slumped to a quarter-final loss to Donegal.

A few weeks later, in the autumn of 2022, when the group reconvened for pre-season, there was a sense of disillusion about where the whole thing was headed. Several key players stepped away, for various reasons, while injuries sidelined Jess Tobin, Nicole Owens and Hannah Leahy.

If you compare Sunday's final at Croke Park, to the 2021 final lineup, just seven players started both.

"We were on our knees back in October, November time," said manager Mick Bohan. 

Tyrrell must have wondered if, having won an FAI Cup soccer medal and a Six Nations rugby championship previously in her remarkable sporting career, her All-Ireland dream was doomed to failure.

"Mick's not wrong," agreed Tyrrell of the Halloween strife. "I'm not going to go into details but there were some really tough moments in that October, November period.

FINALLY: Hannah Tyrrell lifts the Brendan Martin Cup

"We had lost a lot of players, things weren't going the right way for us, we were very unhappy about a lot of things.

"But we came together, management got things spot on, players put in the work and everything, all 50 within our squad and management team, just made it work and it's all come to fruition."

It was still a close run thing though, timing-wise. Dublin lost National League games to Kerry and Galway and when they ran into Kerry again in the group stage of the Championship, they were given another lesson.

Then, when the need was greatest, they delivered in spades with big wins over Donegal, Cork and Kerry in the All-Ireland knock-out stages.

"Nothing just happens by chance in this game," said Tyrrell. "Sami Dowling had us prepped perfectly, the S&C, to have us peaking at the right time.

"That worked out really well for us, we had a few blips along the way but we didn't let that faze us. We had belief that if we could put in a performance, we'd win."

Dublin beat Donegal by 3-12 to 0-6 in the quarter-finals last month and, for Tyrrell, that was the moment that things really started to come together.

"Obviously it was great to win the Leinster final but Donegal had been looming over us from last year," said the 33-year-old.

"Once we got over that line, and so comprehensively, we knew we had something special here and we still had another gear to go."

With injured players potentially returning to Dublin in 2024 and rising stars like Niamh Crowley and Niamh Donlon now All-Ireland winners, the future looks bright.

Veteran attacker Sinead Aherne, 37, may finally call it a day, however, after 20 years in blue. The four-in-a-row winning captain returned from retirement midway through the Championship and came on in each of their last four games, ultimately winning her sixth All-Ireland medal.

"We will never see the likes of a player of Sinead Aherne's calibre, both on and off the pitch, her leadership, the quality, the skill set that she has, she's brought so much to this team in a time where we probably really needed that experience," said Tyrrell.

"She didn't come back in expecting game time or minutes, she wanted to put in that leadership off the pitch. It was great for her to get on. She is the greatest Dublin footballer we've ever seen."

Tyrrell herself won the Player of the Match award for Sunday's heroics and celebrated afterwards with baby daughter, Aoife.

"I don't know how much of the game she saw but she was there," she smiled.

"We got her in the cup, some amazing memories created that I'll be able to look back on with her. Hopefully she'll be able to achieve something similar down the line."