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21st August 2019
12:46pm BST
“He's always demanding more, but you have to remember: where did Liam come from? His first All-Ireland Final in 2009, we were up…against Kilkenny. We thought we had it. We spoke about that as players after. We thought that day that we had it. We spoke as a group even, and everyone kind of said "yeah, it crossed our mind, we thought we had it". And then it was taken from us in a blink of an eye. So I think, even though it was 12 points, somewhere in the back of your mind you're saying "right, this is Kilkenny", they've done it so many times before to so many different teams. You don't believe your 12 points. The scoreboard is not registering, you're looking for the next ball. And I think that's Liam, he's always, always looking for the next ball.”Sheedy’s return has been widely lauded for dragging Tipp hurling from the doldrums of last year to the top of the increasingly competitive pile in 2019. Like Kilkenny, few tipped the Premier for silverware this year, but they shot out of the traps with an unbeaten Round-Robin campaign before a blip in the Munster Final crashed them back down to earth. They took their learnings, both from this year, last and 2009 and Corbett reckons that healthy fear of loss was crucial in their victory;
“And back to your question, down in Ennis this year, match is over, game won, lashings of rain... He's driving on 15 guys that are doing the runs after. So he's always looking for that extra little bit of an edge and I just think there that, back down to Brian Cody, back down to Kilkenny, you can just never, ever take the foot off the gas until you're nearly sitting inside in the dressing room. Even when the referee blows the whistle you have to think for a second. But you're in the dressing room, and you win and you say "right so we've done it here".Whether Liam Sheedy simply wanted to rack the score up against Kilkenny, or whether there was a genuine fear of Brian Cody raising the dead Night King-style in Croke Park, the man embodies the passion and drive that captured Liam for the Premier this year.
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