Tipp great Nealon lauds Tipp’s All-Ireland success
By Anna Powell
Legendary Tipperary player and coach Donie Nealon has extended his congratulations to the 2025 All-Ireland Senior Hurling champions for a victory that “surpassed all our expectations.”
The 5-time All-Ireland winner in 1958, 61, 62, 64 & 65, before coaching Tipp to titles in 1971, 1989 & 1991 was still struggling to understand what happened in the second half of the final when they outscored Cork 3-14 to 0-2.
“Very few people at the end of the day, could have said before the match, we are going to win this,” he said.
“My god the second half, who can say what will happen in any match after that.
“It was unbelievable by Tipp, but Corks collapse was even more unbelievable. I’d say they are still scratching their heads, why were we so flat? I think it shows now that they were played out, they didn’t get a great preparation for the final.
“They had it too easy against Dublin whereas Tipp came in the hard road, and I think that made a big difference.
“When you are favourites, there is huge pressure on you to perform and do what you did in the other matches.
“I would say Cork expended a lot of energy. They won the league, they won Munster. I think they went through a tougher campaign, than we did. If we were making mistakes, we had time to correct them,
“Tipperary came along gradually during the year and each time they were getting better, even in the league they were doing well.”
While Tipperary trailed by six points at half time, the Burgess clubman was happy with how the team performed up to then.
“I was delighted with the first half,” he said.
“Tipp were harassing them, marking them, and keeping with them. Cork hit a bit of a purple patch; they went five ahead. Tipp didn’t seem to be worried, they came back with a couple of points, there was only three points in it.
“Then we lost the ball badly in the middle of the field to let Cork through. Great goal, one of their typical goals again.
“I was mad at half time. We were only three down, now we were six down. The worst time to concede a goal is either before half time or soon after half time. I was wondering how are we going to recover.
He added: “We never seemed to give up, I thought our goalie was fantastic, marvellous when he saved the penalty, and he got up off his knees and cleared the ball.
“Our backs were questionable during the year. I didn’t know how many goals Cork would score off them but no, our backs were fantastic. They hardly gave Cork a look at the goal, they only conceded one goal. I thought our backs were very solid altogether,
“We had some terrible wides in the first half, we were scratching our heads looking at it, but they couldn’t drive it wide in the second half. They only had a few wides. What a transformation.
“Tipperary didn’t seem to be troubled at any time. They seemed to have great belief in their own abilities and what kind of process they were playing to. They never got flummoxed in any way, they drove on.”
Like many Tipp supporters, Donie felt the second half performance was as good as he has ever seen from a Tipperary team, and he has seen more than most.
“The display by Tipperary in the second half, that was 10/10, it was a landslide, when have we seen that in an All-Ireland,” he said.
“I was wondering, is this going to happen? Are we really going to win?
“We were up seven or eight points and then we got another goal, and I was thinking we can hardly be beaten now.
“I found it very hard (to watch). I was only peeping at the score for the last 10/15 minutes.”
Donie Nealon as a classy forward in his day and was particularly pleased for John McGrath whose first goal was his moment of the match.
“How cool was John McGrath.
“We were all shouting at him to pick up the ball off the ground. No…. he took his time and tapped it in.
“I mean that really took brains. The way he did it I thought it was fantastic,” concluded Donie.