Instrumental in Tipperary's defeat of Kilkenny during Sunday's All-Ireland final win, Niall O'Meara credited Liam Sheedy's recruitment of Eamon O'Shea as a masterstroke that has paid great dividends.
A fixture of Liam Sheedy's backroom team when Tipperary secured All-Ireland success in 2010, Eamon O'Shea's three-year stint in charge of the Premier County never quite reached the same heights.
Taking Tipperary within a hawk-eye decision of a momentous win in 2014, it was with some surprise that he returned to Sheedy's backroom team as this year's National Hurling League concluded.
Fulfilling no clear and obvious role initially, the addition of Eamon O'Shea has proved a decisive move on Sheedy's part if Niall O'Meara is to be believed.
"Eamon O'Shea fingerprints were all over it," noted O'Meara of Tipperary's second-half performance in conversation with Off the Ball from the team's hotel.
"We had the work-rate that Liam Sheedy expects you to bring, and I think our whole management team, that performance summed up what they've brought to us this year.
"Eamon is my own club-man in Kilruane and he was working with us last year.
"We got a serious buzz and won our first North final in 20-years, and he brought the same energy here.
"He's just a serious hurling man and has a different way of looking at the game and once you can see it that makes it easy."
After a tense first-half display where Kilkenny established an early lead, Tipperary rallied superbly.
When Richie Hogan received a straight red card for his collision with Cathal Barrett at the tail end of the opening 35-minutes, the deficit told in Tipperary's favour throughout the second-half.
"We played Tipp hurling for the whole game," he explained, "and even though it took a while to get going, we did.
"I was reading Brendan Maher's article yesterday about how he nearly cried when Liam left in 2010, and at the start of the year, the guys were just telling me how good he is.
"There's no minor detail left untouched, and I think that really counts because all that comes together.
"He brought in Eamon and that just added a new dimension. With Tommy and Darragh, they've done unbelievable work.
"In terms of coaching, they picked different things they wanted to work on from last year.
"They analysed 2018's championship and decided we needed to do this, this and this to get competitive again.
"They knew exactly where we wanted to go and how to get there."
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