Alan Tynan reveals that Tipperary didn't want legends' names to be 'tarnished'

“I was out on my feet in the last minute after that free,” Alan Tynansmiled.

That was after the Roscrea dynamo managed to save Tipperary’s season by winning a late free in the dying embers of play in Walsh Park last Sunday.

“I was nearly saying, ‘Please blow it up.’ You wanted another chance to get going but definitely we’ll get a bit of recovery into us over the next two days and then maybe hit the field Tuesday night and back into it,” he said in relief.

Tynan spoke of the hurt that was in the group all week after the Limerick fiasco in the Gaelic Grounds and he noted that a lot of the younger cohort on the panel wanted to right those wrongs so the more experienced heads legacies weren’t “tarnished” by the no-show six days previously.

“A massive couple of weeks for this group and we don’t want to let last week define us as players and people. ‘Bonner’ (Maher) and Noel (McGrath), these guys have three All-Ireland medals and we don’t want their names to be tarnished like the way they were among people in Ireland and Tipperary over the last week.

“I said it last year that we’ll fight to the bitter end and I think we showed that and hopefully we’ll drive it on over the next couple of weeks.”

Plenty of pride was at stake in the Tipperary camp in the build-up. Tynan felt the six-day turnaround from losing to Limerick to going to Waterford was a plus. They had no choice but to put their heads down.

“We didn’t do ourselves justice last week and even thinking back to it you still get caught up in it. I think the six-day turnaround was good for us because it didn’t give us a chance to dwell on what happened.

“We went in Monday night back to a gym session and we just had a chat as a team and as a management group and we just said, ‘We’re going to go for this, what have we got to lose?’

“There was no point holding back and just play with a freedom. I think we did do that for large parts of the game and looking back we would be very disappointed with the goals.

Those goal weren’t without controversy with James Owens calamitous start with the penalty incident continuing throughout the game, while the second goal was questionable too with a third man tackle on Bryan O’Mara in the build up to Jack Prendergast’s major late in the first half.

“Looking back, the first two were quite harsh on us but the third one was a complete lack of concentration,” he said of the third goal.

“We’ll hopefully learn from that going forward but, yeah, a tough week leading into it and I think we showed the character that’s in there, the leaders like Noel, Ronan (Maher), Jake (Morris), talking all week, lifting our spirits.

“They’ve been there before and they’re the lads you want to be go into the trenches with every time you go out onto the field.

“You see even ‘Bonner’ coming on and winning the dirty ball.

“That’s something we would have struggled with last week. Look, good to right a few wrongs from last week and a lot to build on going forward.”