Davy Fitzgerald: Liam Cahill proved the doubters wrong, now it's time to enjoy

Irish Daily Mirror

7 days ago

Liam Cahill will wake up tomorrow morning as an All-Ireland-winning manager.
It's something no one can ever take away from him. All those doubters, those who wrote him off after last summer's Championship, now have to revisit their words.
For he proved every single one of his critics wrong throughout 2025 and especially this afternoon.
The decisions he made were both brilliant and brave: his match-ups, his decision to go with a plus-one in defence; his decision to stick with plan A even when Cork had opened up a six-point lead at half-time.
Yet before we delve deeper into how Cahill and Tipperary won this game, we need to step back in time briefly, to the stick he received last summer after Tipp's Championship had ended without a win.
It was wrong because Liam has a proven track record having won All-Irelands at minor and Under 21 level prior to his impressive run taking Waterford to the senior All-Ireland final in 2020.
The man has pedigree. He is talented yet humble. He has confidence and a shrewd tactical brain and all those qualities were demonstrated throughout the 70 minutes of yesterday's final.
Tipp were pure class.
Nothing less.
Their players' work rate was insane. Their adherence to the gameplan proved a masterstroke.
Some have said you can never win an All-Ireland playing the plus one. Well, Tipp proved that theory wrong.
They clearly looked at Cork's semi-final demolition job on Dublin and decided they had to kill the space in front of the Rebels' full-forward line.
They did so brilliantly. Bryan O'Mara was immense. And so was his management team.
What really impressed me about the Tipp victory was the decisions they made in terms of their match-ups: Ronan Maher marking hurler of the year contender Brian Hayes; Michael Breen picking up Pat Horgan; Robert Doyle nullifying Alan Connolly.
Between them those three Cork players had scored 12-67 in this year's Championship. Yesterday they were restricted to 0-3 from play, 0-4 in total.
There are two key reasons for this. First, you have to credit the Tipp management for the choices they made in their match-ups. Second, credit the players for delivering performances. Tipperary manager Liam Cahill celebrates with the Liam MacCarthy cup
But you also have to look at the game from a tactical perspective. O'Mara's positioning was exceptional. He collected so many long balls that were fired into the sky by the Cork backs.
The one time Tipp were opened up, for Shane Barrett's first-half goal, was a prime example of what a team should do when they play against the plus one.
The key is to run at a side, to commit defenders and then pop passes over their heads, which was precisely what Robert Downey and Mark Coleman did in the build-up to the Barrett goal.
If that's one effective way of getting around the plus one, then another is to deliver quick passes into your midfield around the 65, and trust them to score points from distance. Cork, to their detriment, didn't try those two tactics often enough.
And they suffered accordingly.
While questions have to be answered within their camp, I firmly believe they have an All-Ireland in them. The talent is there. The lessons are there.
But to find the answers, they are going to have to engage in some deep soul-searching across the remainder of this summer and then into autumn and winter.
For that's two successive All-Ireland finals they have now lost. Many of these players were also there for the 2021 final defeat, too.
To figure out what they need to do right, they first have to ask themselves what they did wrong.
Tipp, and Liam Cahill, did precious little wrong in 2025.
This victory is a tremendous vindication of everything he is about because the truth is that you don't manage an All-Ireland winning team unless you know your stuff.
A poor manager would relent to player power during tough times. That was never going to be the case with Liam and it was only when we listened to the post match interviews yesterday, when we heard the Tipp players speak with such humility about themselves, and with such warmth towards their manager, that we got an insight into what makes them tick.
That second half performance that they delivered was remarkable. Equally as remarkable was their calmness. Despite going six points down, they never felt as though they were in trouble.
Jake Morris delivered for them in a big way. Darragh McCarthy was a phenomenon. John McGrath, scorer of two goals, proved precisely why rumours of his demise were grossly inaccurate and unfair. He was simply immense.
Yet for me a big part of the Tipp victory yesterday was their goalkeeper. Aside from his penalty save, which was superb, Rhys Shelly proved yesterday why he is the goalkeeper of the season.
His puck-outs were exceptional and this part of the game is so important in determining outcomes.
Every team has their strategy when it comes to puck-outs. But it takes a good keeper to execute it. Rhys did. Tipp expected Cork to press up on his puck outs yet Rhys had the composure and the accuracy to counteract this with precise deliveries.
His short ones worked as did his variations when he went longer.
His reward tomorrow morning is to wake up with an All-Ireland medal.
He earned it.
All those Tipp boys did.
And my advice is to enjoy it to the max, to be humble, but to also be proud.
Because what they achieved in 2025 was immense.