Blue to gold: Tipperary's behind-the-scenes insights into an unforgettable All-Ireland success
REDEMPTION: Tipp starlet Darragh McCarthy after their dramatic All-Ireland win - 'You're up in the stand and I say I said 150 Hail Marys beside John McGrath at the time, and he’s like, ‘What is going on here?’ Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
YOUNG hurler of the year Darragh McCarthy admits his superb All-Ireland hurling final performance allowed him to believe he wasn’t “a liability” to the Tipperary team.
McCarthy was sent off for a second bookable offence in the All-Ireland semi-final win over Kilkenny having been issued a straight red card at the outset of the Munster SHC Round 2 defeat to Cork.
In the documentary “Blue to Gold”, chronicling the All-Ireland winning season produced by midfielder Conor Stakelum’s company Retake, the Toomevara starlet feared he would be dropped for the final. However, he was quickly reassured by manager Liam Cahill that he would be starting and taking the frees and he felt “invincible nearly” as a result.
McCarthy, who scored 1-13 against Cork, says: “It was nearly a privilege to say ‘thanks lads for the whole year and for having my back and now I can give something small back in return and try my best for the team without being a liability.’”
McCarthy recalls being warned by Cahill at half-time in the Kilkenny game that he was on a yellow card. “He came in at half-time and he was like, ‘You're on the yellow, don't do anything silly.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I won't let you down, I won't let you down, I promise you that, I won't, I learn from my mistakes.’
“I flicked Eoin Murphy and it was a second yellow but you're thinking, ‘This isn’t going to happen, like, no way, hardly.’ And you look at him (referee James Owens), he calls you over, he gives you the curly finger like that and he flashes out the second yellow and you're like, ‘Oh my God, not again, like.’
“Jake (Morris) puts the arm around you again and he says, ‘We're going to win this, we'll do it for you, we'll do it for you.’ Like, why would you do it for me after all the silliness I've done before, like, why would you bother?
“You're up in the stand and I'd say I said 150 Hail Marys beside John McGrath at the time, and he’s like, ‘What is going on here?’ I had the cross (of a chain) in my hand there saying, ‘If anyone's up there, please, please do something and the next thing Oisín (O’Donoghue) gets the ball (to score a goal).”
McCarthy wanted an “undo button” after he was dismissed for hitting out at Seán O’Donoghue at the outset of the game in Cork in April.
“Because I had such a poor league final against Cork, you're going, ‘Right, I'm going to set the tone here or there.’ You never mean to let the hurley go in. Genuinely, I didn't mean that, but it's just one of the things that just happened.
“You never believe it until you actually look up and you see your red card. You're like, ‘Oh my God’. In front of 50,000 people, my second ever (SHC) match.
“It’s one of those things where you just want the ground to swallow you up. That's where you want an undo button on your computer or something. Just click the button there and get rid of the whole thing. But you can't and you just have to live with that.”
McCarthy was grateful to Noel McGrath who left his substitute’s seat to embrace him coming off the field and Cahill for consoling with him.
“That means a lot and I suppose that meant a lot to my whole family as well. I wasn't just left there on my own. Then the morning after, Jake Morris rang me and said, ‘We'll go for a bit of lunch or we'll go for a coffee.’ That's what team-mates do. And that was the reaction I got. I'd say I got through 40 men on the panel, I got 40 messages.”
Cahill admitted he suffered from sleepless nights after a disappointing 2024 season. “You’re walking the landing at home, going down for a cup of tea at 3.30 in the morning. The sense of embarrassment of 2024, I never want to feel that ever again.”
At the time, captain Ronan Maher concedes he was over-emotional in his addresses to the players. “There were times in the dressing room where I was trying to talk and I started crying. I know that looks terrible as a captain but that’s how low we were and that’s how low I was, probably, as a captain… we were rock bottom.”
Performance coach Cathal Sheridan, who also helped All-Ireland SFC champions Kerry, compliments Cahill and his management team for acknowledging their own errors in 2024.
“There was a serious show of humility. ‘Here’s where we fucked up, here's where we didn’t do the job well enough, here’s what we’re going to do about it.’
“I think there’s a big difference between being vulnerable about something, saying ‘I’m worried about this’ or “I have a fear about this’ versus leading with vulnerability…”
The pre-season weekend’s training camp in Kilworth was the only time Tipperary spent out of the county during the season. Cahill wanted his players to suffer “a little bit of hardship” and come the end of it he felt they were “really up for the battle”.
Cahill also touches on how he had been perceived as a manager. “The narrative out there would be Liam Cahill’s teams play really well in the league then they peter out come the championship. They’re flogged in training and they peak at the wrong time. But we needed to get back winning matches and show the Tipp supporters we were on a mission to rectify the wrongs of 2024.”
According to Noel McGrath, the quality of Tipperary’s training between beating Waterford and the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final win over Laois was the winning of the championship for them.
Ahead of the final against Cork, Maher reveals coach Mikey Bevans told the group they would be playing with an extra defender but be “the most attacking team to ever play a sweeper”.
Down six points at half-time, Cahill admits to momentarily feeling sorry for himself only to return to the dressing room where his empowered players were troubleshooting.
Cahill and Craig Morgan also pay emotional tributes to former Tipperary hurler Dillon Quirke who passed away while playing for Clonoulty-Rossmore against Morgan’s Kilruane MacDonaghs in August 2022.
Cahill speaks of “huge regret that I never really got to work with him at senior level” and Quirke’s loss being “hugely difficult to manage”.
He adds: “It’s a huge void that will never be filled but it had to be acknowledged in some sort. The more we acknowledged it, it still didn’t fix anything or take anything away.
“It was only this year in 2025 that we really kind of came to terms with it some bit, that we could allow it to I won’t say inspire us but encourage us.”
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