After his team defeated Kilkenny 4-17 to 1-18 in the All-Ireland final, Tipperary manager Liam Sheedy had some strong words for his critics.
The Premier County lost their opening match in the Munster Championship to Cork, and Sheedy and his team came in for some criticism in the county.
“People are entitled to their point of view but, thankfully, we are very good at turning negatives into positive in our group and we got an opportunity to do so,†Sheedy said after the match.
“They said I didn’t win one (All-Ireland) as a player, so I guess I’ve won one as a manager now. That’s something anyway.
“Since we had our poor match in Munster, people were very quick to point out what’s wrong with this team. I’ll tell you one thing today, it’s about time they sat back and pointed out what’s right. There are an awful lot of right things going on in that Tipperary dressing room.
“They know when they don’t perform. It hurts them, it eats them inside and it puts it up in their guts, in all our guts.
“It’s all about how you react and driving it on again, picking it up and going to the next level. You couldn’t have done it with 15 players. We needed 33.”
“I am a proud Tipperary man,” he added, “Ever since I got this job I said I’d give it 100% and at 3.15pm today, myself, Eamon O’Shea and Mick Ryan looked at each other and said, ‘no regrets, we’ve done everything, we’ve ticked every box and we are ready to play.'”
