'Church' boss Dunphy: We didn't let ourselves down in Croke Park

Liam Dunphy couldn't hide his satisfaction after seeing his players become the first team from Tipperary to take the title since Kiladangan in 2005.

Sat, 10 Jan, 2026 - 21:45

Paul Keane

For Upperchurch-Drombane manager Liam Dunphy it almost felt like the further they got from Tipperary this season, the better they played.

What he meant was that with football training and games out of the equation, and the Munster and All-Ireland series taking his players deep into 2025 and early 2026, they could focus entirely on the small ball. And they reaped the rewards.

This evening's All-Ireland final win at Croke Park, when they came out the right side of an extra-time epic with Mayo's Tooreen, will go down as one of the club's greatest days.

"As the year went on, when you actually find yourself in hurling only mode, week on week, with no football, the energy levels are totally different, you have more time with the players," said Dunphy. "Even there on a Sunday morning, when there's no football matches on, you get in and you have a tactical session with the lads.

"And you can see it there, we probably played better outside of Tipp than we did within Tipp, because our energy levels were better and we were able to put more time into it. And look, we didn't let ourselves down in Croke Park, did we? We clocked up 4-20 over 80 minutes, you'd be happy enough with that.

"We conceded 2-24, a big score for us to concede, but we came out the right side of it."

Dunphy couldn't hide his satisfaction after seeing his players become the first team from Tipperary to take the title since Kiladangan in 2005.

There were times throughout a rollercoaster game when it looked like they wouldn't get it done. Tooreen, the beaten finalists of 2023, took over completely in the middle 20 minutes or so of normal time, with Dunphy acknowledging that his players sat back too deep. As a result, Tooreen were able to pick off a series of long-range scores, outscoring The Church by 0-10 to 0-1 in that period.

Then, at the end of extra-time, they were almost reeled in again as Tooreen turned a 10-point deficit into a two-point game.

"I have fierce trust in our hurling, I knew our hurling would be there at the end and would shine through," said Dunphy. "And equally our fitness levels.

"We've put in an awful lot of work, the work that all the coaches have done with them and the hurling that's there in the boys really stands to you at the end of a game like that.

"That really showed in extra-time when we managed to build a 10-point lead. We finally were able to open them up at the back and we got the scores we needed."