Now that he finally has time on his hands again, Liam Sheedy could do worse than to try his hand some evening at one of those open-mic, amateur comedy nights. He'd wipe the floor with all comers, frankly. A solid, painstakingly prepared set. A killer punchline. Then exit stage left, leaving the crowd roaring for more. Heaven help the next man on.

In the unlikely event Sheedy is unaware of the pleasure he has helped bring to so many people, here's a story for him to take pride in. Among the spectators in the Hogan Stand on 5 September was a gentleman from Clonmel, long domiciled in north Wicklow. This particular gent lived through the 1960s. He was there in Killarney in 1987. He is the sort so dedicated to the blue and gold that he even drove to Thurles for the two abandoned league games with Kilkenny in February. He thought he'd seen it all. He hadn't. He spent the closing 10 minutes last month on tenterhooks, unconsciously elbowing one of his rapidly bruising sons – a strongly-built fellow at that – at every puck of the ball before turning to him at the final whistle and announcing that this was "the greatest day of his life". Not the greatest day of his life following Tipp: the greatest day of his life.

Yet the man who took over a sinking ship and made it seaworthy has earned the gratitude of a wider constituency too, that of the hurling world at large. The cliché that it was "up to the other counties" to come up to Kilkenny's standard was as true as it was irritating. Under Sheedy, Tipperary accepted the challenge and strove ceaselessly for self-improvement. His work ethic was immense, his capacity to generate trust – a rare ability – huge; time and again Sheedy put his faith in people and let them get on with it. He learned from his mistakes, he discovered how to change the face of a game from the sideline and he didn't make the error of thinking he was bigger than the job. It is a pity we'll never know how he'd have met the challenge of emulating Brian Cody by, with Everest scaled, keeping his county at high altitude on a permanent basis. But only a small pity.

If he'll have Tipp folk buying him pints for the rest of his life, he'll know better than anyone that it wouldn't have taken much for the world to have tilted the other way and for last Thursday's announcement to have been made three months ago. The five minutes that changed the year and that sounded the first toll of the death knell for Kilkenny's five-in-a-row bid began with Galway two points ahead late on in the All Ireland quarter-final and eschewing the chance to go three up in favour of that hideous-looking bout of handpassing. Empires are sometimes built on such fine margins. But it wasn't luck that extricated Tipp, it was patience and the good habits inculcated under Sheedy.

On top of that, both last year and this year they trained on 10 lengths between the All Ireland semi-final and the final. Management being a collective exercise, Sheedy deserves as much credit for that as Eamon O'Shea – the real author – does.

Tipperary do not have a successor lined up and will not be panicked into making a decision. Back in January we wrote here that, looking down the line, "it is crucial for the county board to get the matter of Sheedy's successor right when that day comes. In other words, no going for a Michael Doyle-type or going back for a Babs Keating". At the time it seemed like an idle worry for a distant day in a galaxy far, far away. Not any longer. Given that Tipperary have in recent years acquired the habit of doing so many things so well, however – on the hurling side, on the football side, on the media and PR side – one expects them to get this one right also. They'll start by realising that this is a position to be allocated not on the grounds of services already rendered to the county but as an investment in services to be rendered in the future.

While the cup being passed over is no poisoned chalice it bears a handle-with-care tag nonetheless, so apparently brimful of nectar that it may easily be spilled. Declan Ryan and Tommy Dunne as manager and coach respectively is the obvious ticket; Nicky English is the popular choice domestically but, having done the state more service than most, can't be blamed should he decide against returning to old battlefields. Tipp don't need a messiah any more, just continuity. Liam Sheedy has made sure of that.