To the vast annals of great GAA half-time speeches we must now add that of Jackie Tyrrell. Exactly what was said in the Kilkenny dressing-room on Sunday may never be revealed, although it clearly made a difference, as the end result proved.

“There’s been a bit made of it,” says Tyrrell, modestly, or perhaps because his exact words were never meant to be repeated. “Some of it has been over-hyped. I just spoke from the heart, tried to motivate the boys, and show the opportunity that they had in front of them. But I didn’t go in to say ‘right, I’m going to let these lads have it’. I just went in, and there was a deadness about it, a casualness. So it was like we were waiting for it to happen. Something needs to be said. I just started talking, and before you know it I was kind of in the middle of it.

"And I was concerned, absolutely. I knew Galway had the squeeze on us, and we should have been more up. That was what I stressed to the lads, what an opportunity we had. We hadn't got going at all, and we were only three points down. It was an eye-opener, but in fairness to the lads, I only said the words – they had to go out and do the business. And by God they did."

Tyrrell's motivation ran deep: a stress fracture in his foot meant he didn't feature in the game, although he was still prepared to play some part, if Brian Cody deemed him necessary.

‘Good to go’

"I was, yes, absolutely. Brian had said I was cover for the backs, so I was ready and available. It was just the fact that I hadn't trained in six or seven weeks, and Shane Prendergast had done so well that they obviously went with Shane. That's fair enough. And I literally hadn't trained, so I don't know, 70 minutes would have been a lot so I don't know. But I would have been good to go if needed."

Still, Tyrrell collected his ninth All-Ireland medal, and admitted it was slightly bittersweet, given he didn’t get to feature in the final. “It’s a bit different, all right. You want to be playing, you want to be out there, but to say nine medals is unbelievable. That certainly makes it very sweet.”

Motivation to continue

Indeed it’s possibly given Tyrrell the motivation to continue for another season, confident the foot injury is a temporary setback: “I wouldn’t say I’d be adamant, here, now. I’ll have to weigh up everything. Obviously the foot comes into consideration. I have to go back to the surgeon.

“The option I took was a very quick-fix method, just putting a screw in it. Ideally, you just put it in a boot and let the bone mend back together. The surgeon said ‘you could more than likely be back to me after this’. I’ll just have to see over the next couple of days with the club, have to look at it all.

“And you look at the pace of the game, the age profile. You have to weigh up the whole thing, your personal life, things like that. Think about all that over the next few months.

“But then going for a 10th medal is definitely a big factor. Absolutely. You want to go back for the right reasons. You want to go back to play. I’d rather win one playing than not playing. I haven’t given it a huge amount of thought but definitely what has happened in the last couple of weeks is a factor.”