If you judge a team on how it reacts in adversity then Tipperary scaled new heights on Sunday for spirit, guts and bravery.

Two points down with two minutes to go against a Galway team unrecognisable from the Leinster final debacle, Tipperary faced elimination from the championship and an end to all the great hopes generated by last year's All Ireland final appearance.

But cometh the hour cometh the men.

Instead of Tipp teams leaving Croke Park on the wrong end of a narrow margin following a pulsating encounter, this time they departed in celebration.

In three never-to-be-forgotten minutes, they saved their season and gave their fans further reason to hope.

Tied at 3-14 each after fifty seven minutes, Tipp found themselves two behind in the 61st minute following Galway scores from subs Kevin Hynes and Aongus Callanan.

That was still the margin seven minutes later as wides from Gearoid Ryan and Lar Corbett reflected the side's difficulty in clawing back the lead.

But just when it looked like all hope was lost, Tipperary doggedness won the day in glorious fashion.

Sub John O'Brien raised the first glimmer of hope in the 68th minute when he burst through the centre and tapped over. A minute later Gearoid Ryan atoned for his earlier miss with a superb point from the Hogan Stand side.

And then in the first minute of injury time another sub Pa Bourke skinned the Galway defence and when his route to goal was blocked, he got the pass away to Sarsfields clubmate Lar Corbett for the winning point.

The drama was almost too intense and it didn't ease any when Galway hit back at the other end and when Niall Healy went to ground surrounded by half the Tipp defence, the ref's decision would make or break a season.

He ruled that Healy had gone to ground too easily and instead of blowing for a free in, blow the long whistle instead.

Those final minutes had brought an end to another Tipperary epic at Croke Park - their first time back since the heartbreaking defeat to Kilkenny last September.

But this time they were hugging and embracing rather than sitting disconsolately. That role was left to a wonderful Galway side that had contributed so magnificently to a thrilling encounter.

Tipp's 'elder statesmen', Brendan Cummins and Eoin Kelly, were outstandinig at either end of the field but it was the young guns in between that are beginning to shape the team.

Paddy Stapleton, Michael Cahill, Brendan Maher, David Young, Gearoid Ryan and Patrick 'Bonner' Maher have limited experience of the big time but all were immense on Sunday.

Add in the return to form of Conor O'Mahony and Shane McGrath - the Ballinahinch player turned the tide of the game when moved back to his preferred position of midfield - and the spine of the team is re-enforced.

And with a score-taker of the calibre of Lar Corbett on the team, no cause is every lost.