Sideline Snippets - All-Ireland Final Special

Sideline Snippets is www.gaa.ie's sideways look at all things in the world of GAA! Catch it every week on the site throughout the summer. 

Unbelievable...How Pat Shortt helped Tipp win Liam

After Tipperary finally ended Kilkenny’s ‘drive for five’ in last year’s All-Ireland final, hurling experts carefully analysed and tactically evaluated the many reasons why the Premier County came out on top. Was it Brendan Cummins’ puck out strategy or the Tipperary forwards’ brilliant and relentless switching that got Liam Sheedy’s team over the line?

It might have been a lot more straightforward than that if comedian, actor and IFTA award winner Pat Shortt is to be believed. A few days before the final, Shortt was invited by Sheedy to entertain the Tipp players at their team hotel in Carton House. Shortt, best known as one half of the comedy double act D’Unbelievables, told a few jokes and sang a few songs but his piece de resistance caught the players a little by surprise.

“I came up with a friend of mine, a musician, dressed him in Kilkenny colours and I kicked the backside off him around the room,” Shortt said. “It was very funny. The reaction when I dragged my mate out in the Kilkenny jersey…I thought they would laugh too but they were so focused I don’t think they took too well to him.”

As a tactic to counter the attendant hype of all-Ireland final week, Tipperary vice-captain Conor O’Mahony told Sideline Snippets that it provided the perfect distraction.

“With everything so serious and lads so focused, Liam brought him in for the night and it freshened things up,” he said. “The lads got a great laugh for an hour. It was something different. We all enjoyed it, got a great kick out of it and switched off from the hurling.”

With his tongue very firmly in his cheek, Shortt was in little doubt about how key a role he played in Tipperary’s win. “I claim to be the deciding factor in pushing them over the line!”

Milking it

If Kilkenny’s press nights have very much become part and parcel of the build-up to the All-Ireland hurling final for what seems like an age now, then the presence of giant cartons of Avonmore milk have become an expected feature of the annual pilgrimage to Langton’s Hotel where the media get to harvest coveted words with the players.

Glanbia, the Kilkenny sponsors, are very proactive in their role and strategically placed giant cartons of Avonmore milk around the hotel to, ahem, milk the arrangement for all it’s worth.

Inevitably, the members of the fourth estate, having been lavishly fed and filled their dictaphones with the nuggets that will grace your newspapers all this week, will get down to the serious business of coming up with the funniest milk-related gags.

When the sponsors shove a carton of milk in the players’ hands and get a photographer to do the honours, the scribes will, almost in unison, yell ‘The Cat who got the Cream’.

Top marks for originality, though, must go to the scribe who came up with the memorable ‘Four out of five Cats prefer Avonmore Milk’ line when he saw this particular photo opportunity being arranged.

Final Hotshots

The 2-12 Tipperary’s Nicky English scored in the 1989 All-Ireland final win over Antrim still stands as the biggest personal tally in a hurling decider. English’s tour de force snatched the record from a Kilkenny man, Eddie Keher, who scored 2-11 in the 1971 final defeat to Tipperary, although that game was played over 80 minutes.

Ace of Clubs

The Kilkenny panel has representatives from 17 different Clubs, while the Tipperary panel is drawn from a slightly greater spread of 18 Clubs.

Celtic Crosses

97. The combined number of All-Ireland Senior Championship medals held by the Kilkenny squad. Between them, the Tipperary squad possesses a total of 29 Celtic Crosses.

A Game of Numbers

27. The number of players Tipperary have used in their four Championship games this year. Kilkenny manager Brian Cody has used six fewer in the Cats' three Championship games this summer.

Family Affair

The number of Kilkenny players – PJ Ryan, JJ Delaney and Richie Power - whose fathers have also won a Celtic Cross. PJ Ryan Senior (1974-75), Shem Delaney (1974) and Richie Power Snr (1982-83) all paved the way for their sons.

Unlucky 13

Thirteen years have passed since a team outside the ‘big three’ of Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork has won the All-Ireland title. Offaly’s in 1998 were the last team to break their stranglehold on the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

Open Door

Did you know there are 2,000 doors in Croke Park? No? Neither did we.