REACTION: Cahill swallowed his pride to plan the perfect ambush to rout the Rebels!

Tipperary manager Liam Cahill hailed his side’s resilience and tactical maturity after they produced a stunning second-half turnaround to defeat Cork in dramatic fashion.

Trailing by six points at the break, Tipp exploded into life after the restart, outscoring their opponents comprehensively to seal an emphatic win and silence the doubters.

Cahill credited his team’s ability to adjust their approach without compromising their identity.

MATCH REPORT: The mighty men of Tipperary win the All-Ireland hurling final!

"The dog on the street knew that you just can't leave channels for this Cork team to run through," he said, acknowledging the threat Cork posed.

While the Tipperary boss prefers a traditional head-to-head style, he knew pragmatism was essential on the day.

"I'm a traditionalist, I like to play 15 on 15 if I can at all. But we had to cut our cloth to measure today to make sure that we gave ourselves a chance of allowing us to express ourselves as well.

"I suppose you have to move with the times. When you get to a final, you have to try and win it."

Key to that plan was Brian O’Mara, whose disciplined performance earned high praise from his manager.

"Brian O'Mara was superb. He's such a good hurler; so comfortable in the role today.

We stopped a lot of that real hard aggressive running from Cork and that was a real platform for us to go on then and counter-attack hard and get it into the boys inside."

Despite the strong finish, Cahill admitted the first half raised concerns, particularly around the quality of ball going into the forwards.

"A little concerned early on that we just weren't getting it in quality enough, especially when there was an extra man for Cork at the back and there was only a few 50-50s going in and a few balls we should have carried a bit more.

You're saying ‘Jeez, I wonder should we just abandon and go at it and see what will happen?’ But, at the start of the second half, we got a bit of oxygen and we kicked on from there."

Cork’s first-half momentum was capped by a brilliant goal from Shane Barrett just before the break, sending them in six points ahead. But from that point on, Tipp shut the door — and Cahill said the mood in the dressing room remained calm and focused.

"The message at half-time was to stay doing what we were doing. Into that dressing room at half-time, you could see the desire in their eyes to say that that scoreboard should be a little bit closer.

"And we genuinely believed, once we were within five or six of them at half-time that we'd have a great chance."

Still, he acknowledged that Cork’s goal just before the interval had stung — both in timing and context.

"The goal before half-time, it was a fair sucker punch. We had left a few chances behind us. Hit away the ball when we could have maybe been a little bit braver, playing maybe one more pass to make sure that we could get it inside properly."

Cahill had a contingency plan in mind if the second half started slowly, but his players made it unnecessary.

"We had contemplated maybe after 15 minutes of the second half, it wasn't going our way, reverting to Plan B, which had been three across midfield and abandoned the plus one and try and kick on.

"But we got great traction in the first 15 minutes with the plus one still. And a few chances that maybe we didn't convert in the first half started to go over and gaps started to appear."

Tipperary’s storming restart saw them hit five unanswered points before John McGrath took centre stage — scoring two goals and winning a penalty that Darragh McCarthy converted. That sequence also led to Eoin Downey receiving a second yellow card, effectively sealing Cork’s fate.

"We started the second half like a rocket. Got a bit of luck, I think, that free from Patrick Horgan on Hawk-Eye went wide and it gave you a little bit of oxygen. We got a score or two, suddenly it was back to four. And then up steps John McGrath again."

Even as the scoreboard tilted heavily in Tipp’s favour, Cahill remained wary of Cork’s ability to strike quickly.

"After 12-15 minutes of the second half, I'm looking in at a team that I see training every night with me and I'm saying ‘Now they're starting to really express themselves’. Then we got the numerical advantage, but then you could never be sure with Cork. They could cut you open in two seconds. So you never had it won.

Looking at the watch, 55, 60 minutes, would it just get to 70 minutes, please, as soon as possible."

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