A crestfallen Pat Ryan identified a lack of energy and effort from his side as a Tipperary second-half performance for the ages saw the Rebels suffer a demoralising 15-point All-Ireland final defeat.
Ryan's team were restricted to just two second-half points as a rampant Tipperary side tore the Cork defence to shreds, scoring 3-14 in the process.
A Shane Barrett goal on the stroke of half-time had the fancied Rebels six points to the good and Ryan could only express his disappointment with the performance after the break.
"We're obviously very disappointed as we were in a good enough position at half-time even though Tipperary were playing really, really well," Ryan told RTÉ Sport.
"The goal just before half-time gave us a nice bounce going in but in fairness Tipp just blew us away in the second half with the momentum that they got.
"They got the two goals; there was the sending-off and we were chasing the game. Overall we were disappointed with our performance in the second half. Credit to Tipperary, they were the ones that brought the energy and the effort and got two great goals that changed the momentum of the game.
"We knew that Tipperary were playing really, really well and were crowding out our full-forward line but we were getting plenty of scores from our half-forward line.
"Diarmuid (Healy) and Shane (Barrett) were doing a good bit of damage but the energy and effort from our point of view in that second was not what we would have liked," added the Cork manager.
"That's the disappointing thing from our point of view. Obviously it's the second All-Ireland in a row that we've lost. Just really, really disappointed with that second half. We didn't represent ourselves the way we should have represented ourselves. Credit to Tipperary. They came up and you could see that they had loads of momentum behind them and they had a lot of good players all over the place."
He added: "We have no qualms. Tipperary were the best team, credit to them and they'll enjoy the celebrations."
Cork manager Pat Ryan admitted Tipperary blew his side away in the second half of the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final. #sundaygame pic.twitter.com/yGrvuT3mFW
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 20, 2025
Cork did see four shots come off the woodwork in the second half, but Ryan was not inclined to pin any of the blame on bad luck.
"Maybe it's wrong to say luck because it was a lot of good play by Tipperary that won that game. Luck had absolutely nothing to do with it.
"Look, the harder you work, the more breaks that come for you and the more balls that fall into your hands.
"In fairness, they worked really, really hard, used the ball really, really well and put us under pressure on our own puckout, especially in the the second half and put us under big pressure on their puckout in the second half as well."
After the pain of a second All-Ireland defeat on the spin, Ryan said it was too early to make any decisions on his own future as Cork manager.
"Obviously, when we came here last year we had no trophy, whereas I suppose we have two trophies now. But you kind of put them into the back of the cupboard and you try and concentrate on what we were doing.
"Look, we were chasing trying to win an All-Ireland that we haven't won in 20 years. We came up short again today like we did in 2024, so it's very disappointing for our players. They put an awful lot into the year."
