'Our energy was terrible' - Stunned Pat Ryan laments Cork's chaotic collapse

“Tipperary had all the momentum, they had all the energy, they were the crowd that were working the hardest."

HARD WATCH:Cork manager Pat Ryan after his side's defeat in the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Cork and Tipperary at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Pat Ryan was going to give it straight. How could he not? Riding high at half-time and shot down in a blaze of blue and gold glory. There was no other way to paint it.

“Our momentum and our energy was terrible in the second half,” he conceded. “They had all the momentum, they had all the energy, they were the crowd that were working the hardest. That's the disappointing thing from our point of view.

“Obviously, it's the second All-Ireland in a row that we've lost. Just really, really disappointed with that second half. We didn't represent ourselves the way we should have represented ourselves.

“Credit to Tipperary. They came up and you could see that they had loads of momentum behind them and they had a lot of good players all over the place."

Tipperary went out to contain Cork and then unfurl themselves in the second half. It had been working despite Shane Barrett’s goal before half-time.

“Obviously, they were trying to negate our full-forward line. But in fairness, I thought we were working well enough. We'd scored heavily enough in our half-forward line and stuff like that," added Ryan.

“We were six points up at half-time and in a really, really good position. But when we came out, they got momentum behind them and we just couldn't wrestle it away.

“Then there was the John McGrath break off Patrick and obviously the penalty. We had an opportunity to go seven points up with Patrick's [Horgan] free just after half-time and all of a sudden then you were chasing the game and you were seven or eight points down in the blink of an eye."

On four occasions in the second half, Cork hit the woodwork and Eoin Downey was unfortunate to pick up a second yellow when John McGrath first pushed him but Ryan wasn’t in the mood to cite mitigating factors.

“Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it," insisted the manager. "Look, the harder you work, the more breaks that come for you and the more balls that fall into your hands. In fairness, they worked really hard, used the ball really well and put us under pressure on our own puckout, especially in the second half and put us under big pressure on their puckout in the second half as well.” 

He wasn’t going to complain about the penalty either. 

"To be honest, it's just hard to see from where I am. I'm not going to complain about the referee now after the beating we got today.” 

Recency bias aside, Ryan said there was no question this final reverse was more painful than the close-run thing against Clare 12 months ago. 

"Of course it is. You want to perform. Last year, we came away with a good bit of pride in the way we performed and the epic game it was. In fairness, that second half petered out and that was disappointing from our point of view.” 

This completes Ryan’s three-year term and while there are doubts he will remain on, this was a second successive All-Ireland final appearance and two trophies were claimed this year.

“It's too early now to think about what the year was, like. Obviously when we came here last year we had no trophy, whereas I suppose we have two trophies now. But you kind of put them into the back of the cupboard and you try and concentrate on what we were doing.

“Look, we were chasing, Cork trying to win an All-Ireland that we haven't won in 20 years. We came up short again today like we did in 2024, so it's very disappointing for our players. They put an awful lot into the year. It took an awful lot of character for our guys to get back after last year and to really knuckle down.”