LONG after the final whistle, standing beneath the bowels of Croke Park, Amy O’Connor cut a simultaneously satisfied and breathless figure.

So, was her county’s recapturing of the O’Duffy Cup one of the sweetest All-Ireland final wins of her illustrious career?

‘I think so, definitely,’ O’Connor admitted to The Southern Star.

‘Obviously, we had an awful start to the year, everyone knows that.

‘I know people will laugh now, and it's so cliché, but I didn’t doubt it for a second that we’d be here (All-Ireland final).

‘I’m saying it since the start, even on the days when we were beaten by Antrim and other teams, and things weren't going well, I knew we’d be here.’

As ever, long-time rivals Galway brought an intensity that Cork had to match before seeing out a dangerous closing spell in which Cathal Murray’s side reduced the deficit down to a single point.

‘I think we bring out the best in each other,’ O’Connor answered. ‘We are two very physical teams. They like to bring that physicality and I think when we stand up to it, we can match them. So, yeah, that was a big part of how we prepared for today.

‘They are a tough team to play against but I knew what we had in the dressing room. I knew what we were capable of.

‘Galway love to crowd the middle and it can be horrible to play against, to be honest. We knew that if we could kind of stop them coming out and disrupt there, they’d be less likely to get good quality ball into their inside line. So, that’s kind of what we tried to do.’

Winning manager Ger Manley admitted in his after-match press conference that 20 points was his team’s assigned winning total.

Scoring the first two goals that Galway have conceded in this year’s All-Ireland senior championship went a long way to achieving that target.

‘We definitely targeted goals today, yeah,’ said the Cork corner-forward, scorer of five points in the final.

‘We hadn’t scored a whole pile of goals this year in comparison to other years. That was, I suppose, due to the structure and stuff like that as well.

‘We knew we are a really good inside line and, obviously, the runners off the shoulder from the half-forwards linked up so we could get the ball in there.

‘Probably didn’t get the ball in there today as much as we would have liked, but we knew that we were a still threat inside if we needed to be.

‘We never let up. Saoirse and Orlaith got two great goals.’

Cork’s incessant work rate was another factor in returning the O’Duffy Cup back to Leeside.

‘I suppose it (work rate) has to be there,’ O’Connor stated. ‘That’s kind of the bread and butter of being an inside forward. Now, usually it’s some people think of it as scoring goals, scoring points, but I suppose working hard off the ball is a massive part of it as well.

‘So, I saw Ryan O’Donoghue a couple of weeks ago for Mayo in the All-Ireland football final. The inside forward is not judged solely on goals and points now. They are judged on their ability to get back and work for the team as well.

‘We made a switch at half-time and moved Ashling (Thompson) to centre-forward, and that really paid dividends for us. Millie (Condon) got herself out around the middle and Millie’s a busy body (laughs). She gets around the ground so quickly.

‘So yeah, I’m just delighted that we, the whole team, got over the line today.’