Tipperary and Cavan: How the stars aligned for GAA's boys of winter

The dust has just about settled on two of Gaelic football's greatest Cinderella stories of modern times. And they fell on the same Sunday afternoon.

For a few special hours, hundreds of thousands of eyes around the country were fixed on the unbridled joy of two counties. Sport has a funny way of making us forget about greater worries, if only for an instant.

Tipperary manager David Power embraced his father on the Páirc Uí Chaoimh pitch. Cavan boss Mickey Graham fought back the tears before eventually succumbing to them at the Athletic Grounds.

The only pity was there were no fans on-hand to witness it.

But as the Tipperary players made their way out of the Lee-side stadium, the sounds of car horns filled the Cork air. It wasn't much, given the coronavirus restrictions under which we find ourselves living, but it acted as an indication as to how great the party would be under normal circumstances.

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But then again - could such upsets have happened at all, were it not for the coronavirus pandemic?

A conventional 2020 schedule would have seen the Premier significantly below-strength. Michael Quinlivan and Liam Casey had intially opted out - as had Cavan's Killian Clarke. There would have been no opportunity for Colin O'Riordan to return from Australia for the AFL off-season.

Sometimes, things just fall into place.

Doing it the hard way

They were results nobody predicted.

Tipperary have now won five games in six weekends. But it was not always looking likely. Indeed, they were staring down relegation to Division 4 in the face before the restart, until wins over Offaly and Leitrim preserved their third-tier status.

Gutsy victories over Clare and Limerick followed. But it all came together in a swashbuckling display to KO Cork, who had overcome Kerry in dramatic circumstances.

To put it into context, it is Tipp's first provincial title since 1935, and just the second time in those 85 years that neither the Rebels or Kingdom were crowned Munster champions.

Cavan failed to avoid the drop in the National League. And they were facing a long road ahead, starting against a fancied Monaghan side in the Ulster Championship preliminary round.

On just four previous occasions had the province's winners come from the preliminary round; Cavan in 1945, Armagh in 2005, and Donegal in 2011 and 2012.

But they battled adversity throughout - trailing Monaghan by seven points and Down by 10. They were behind at half-time in all four games, but continued to bounce back for a famous Anglo-Celt Cup triumph.

The masterminds behind the triumphs

Four weeks ago, Mickey Graham addressed the media on an online call, ahead of the Breffni County's Ulster Championship opener. Visible over his shoulder was a Cavan flag hanging on the wall inside his home.

And you could detect the hurt in his voice, after his side had just suffered relegation to Division 3 of the National League earlier that week.

But Graham saw an opportunity; to put the relegation firmly behind them.

"Sometimes when you have time to think about these things and time to dwell on them, you can over-elaborate, and unfortunately there's not a lot you can do without it. Because of the quick turnaround, we as a collective group have an opportunity now to try and fix what went wrong last week as regards our own game, how we can work on things that didn't happen for us," he said.

"We have an opportunity to do that now, and hopefully we can learn the lessons from last week and bring them into the game on Saturday (against Monaghan)."

And what a journey they embarked upon. They trailed at half-time in each of their four games, but continued to upset the odds and work their way to the most unlikely of Anglo-Celt Cup titles.

When the final whistle went, Premier boss Power embraced his father, who was in the stadium in his capacity as Tipperary county board treasurer.

Speaking to the media, he listed a host of stalwarts of Tipperary football without whom the success would not have been possible, including Hugh Kennedy and Mick Frawley, Seamus McCarthy.

"God almighty, they kept Tipp football going when, look, let's face it, it wasn't pretty, we were down in the bottom ends of Division Four and stuff like that. For all those people, it's just a pity that they weren't here today because I know that they'd be so, so proud of this group," he said.

"It's great for Tipp football, in general, going forward. It's huge, absolutely huge.

"Everyone watching us, and we played with a style, we played really, really good and I think young people back in Tipperary, yes, hurling will always be number one in Tipp but now people will want to play football for Tipperary. That is unbelievable PR for Tipp football going forward."

Following Tipperary football has not always been a popular thing to do. The big ball is the poor relation of hurling in the county, but draws a loyal - albeit small - cohort of die-hard fans, whose absence was sorely missed in Cork on Sunday.

"It's been a strange year, and today is no different. To be fair, we've only a small core of true supporters anyway, but they're just fantastic," said captain Conor Sweeney/

"They follow us up and down the country, League matches, Championship, through thick and thin. For those, it's tough not being here."

Nonetheless, the joy was palpable.

"Emotional, very emotional," said David Power. "I know the 100 years since Bloody Sunday is one thing, but this is 85 years (since last Munster win) and there is a lot a lot of people after doing a huge amount of work. This group, over the past 15 years, we have got to minor finals, U21 finals, I am going back to Brian Fox and Philip Austin's time, so I always believe this was going to be our day because there has been a lot of work.

"There has been a lot of articles about underage, but today Tipperary needed to win a senior title. That is what we got. We could have won by a bit more but we played some seriously really good football there today."

What's next?

So Cavan and Tipperary now look ahead to the All-Ireland semi-finals against Dublin and Mayo respectively, games which will be live on Sky Sports Mix.

For this pair of plucky underdogs, they have been handed an even greater task.

The reigning All-Ireland champs go into their showdown with the Breffni County as staggering 1/100 favourites. Mayo will be heavily fancied to reach another decider.

But worrying about the All-Ireland series is for another day. Droughts of 23 and 85 years were broken on a momentous Sunday afternoon.

They will remember these victories in the Breffni and Premier counties for a long time to come.

Make sure to tune into Inside The Game - our weekly GAA discussion show - on Sky Sports Mix every Wednesday evening.