Three points down at the break against Galway, Kilkenny overpowered the Tribesmen in the second half to claim their 36th All-Ireland hurling title with a four point victory.
Speaking to RTÉ's Clare McNamara after the game, Kilkenny full forward Colin Fennelly revealed that a half time speech by Jackie Tyrrell was key in inspiring their second half performance.
Jackie Tyrrell at half time, the speech he gave was absolutely amazing. Jackie might have only one or two years left maybe. Speeches like that, young lads hearing it, it's amazing. The speech at half time was absolutely unbelievable.
He spoke to us all for about a minute or two, every word he said, he got the hair standing on the back of my spine. It was unbelievable what he said.
We have our time to ourselves and we have a quick chat amongst ourselves. He spoke [Tyrrell], Richie Power spoke and Michael Fennelly spoke. Probably the three senior lads of the team. Whatever they said, it went through to us because we went out in the second half and did the business.
Fennelly also spoke to Newstalk regarding Tyrrell's speech and expanded a little further on what he had told RTÉ.
We walked in and our heads were down, we were looking around, we didn’t know what to do or who to look at.
Cody just stood up obviously and said, ‘Ye know what the problem is, we’re not working hard enough, ye’re not doing what ye were told to do. You're not doing what you were doing in training.’ Then he said he’d give us a few minutes to ourselves.
He steps out, he always steps out. It could have been an awkward silence or someone could have stepped up and talked. Jackie Tyrrell stood up so he did, a lad that’s plagued with an injury the last couple of weeks trying to get back.
I’ve never seen a lad work so hard trying to get back. He was standing there absolutely roaring us on, talking just pure sense, exactly what we needed to hear.
He said that this is not good enough, this is not us, this is not what we’re based on, this is not what we’re born and bred on.
He said, ‘I’ve watched ye the last few weeks, ye have hit each other harder in training. Get out there and you're not going to let them walk up the steps.
Tyrrell, now a nine-time All-Ireland winner, was an unused sub on the day.
