If you love your hurling, you won't be complaining that Tipperary and Kilkenny have to do battle again.

There are 19 days for both sides and hurling fans to allow for an intake of breath and before we exhale again, Diarmuid 'Gizzy' Lyng, Jamesie O'Connor and Tommy Dunne joined our panel to review a real final epic.

Former Tipp captain Dunne feels the game deserves the moniker of an epic because of the elite level quality of both sides' attacking.

"The word epic was used and someone was wondering why it was an epic. For me it was because of the execution rate and the conversion rate and the chances that were provided. I've never seen anything like it. I think Tipp had three wides and Kilkenny had six. That's off the charts!"

Gizzy also noted tackling and the intricacy of what both sides were orchestrating yesterday afternoon. 

"The standout statistic is that there were 176 tackles shipped on both sides. That's a huge amount of tackles," said Gizzy, who cited the frantic yet efficient nature of the tackling.

 

©INPHO/James Crombie

Jamesie also feels that the draw will give Tipp valuable belief after enduring plenty of recent criticism.

"Seamus Callinan answered a lot of questions, Lar answered a lot of questions about their character and their ability to do it on the big day and I think Tipp will take a lot of positives, in the sense that the Kilkenny players didn't have any doubts themselves given their record against Tipp. Some of the Tipp players had those doubts in the back of their minds: can we actually beat them? I think they left Croke Park yesterday knowing that they can." 

He also believes will be more likely to stick with the same team - with a greater emphasis on dealing with Richie Hogan's influence, while Kilkenny have "more things to think about."