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Why Tipp are Hated.
Denis Walsh Sunday Times Early 1999
It was probably before the 1960 Munster final, but the date is not important;
the sentiment is timeless. Cork were playing Tipperary and in the dressing room
"Tough" Barry, the Cork trainer, had said his piece. Then Christy Ring stepped
forward and by the time he finished the blood was boiling under every red
jersey. A priest who had insinuated himself into the Cork entourage sat in a
corner of the dressing room and, appalled by the language and tone of Ring's
address, entered as strong a rebuke as he dared. "My dear Christy," he said, "I'm sure you never read that in the New Testament." "The men who wrote the New Testament," replied Ring, "never had to play Tipperary."
Tipperary have never had it easy. They've never made it easy for themselves.
By an accident of geography they share a border with eight hurling counties
(Cork, Clare, Galway, Waterford, Limerick, Kilkenny, Offaly and Laois) and by
an accident of nature they have never considered themselves inferior to any of
their neighbours. Parity of esteem was the most they ever allowed; Cork have
enjoyed most of it, Kilkenny some. For which blessing, they give eternal thanks.
No other county has been engaged in so many simmering feuds, no other county
has represented the ultimate test of machismo for so many rivals. At different
times in their history Tipperary liked to play the game hard, but not always.
Tipperary during the Babs Keating years, 1986-1994, were a beautiful team,
underpinned by a scrupulous attitude to discipline - one sending off in eight
years. Yet they incurred the wrath of Galway and Limerick and, by the end,
Clare.
For that Tipperary team, like so many before, there was something in their
demeanour, their bearing, an inclination to strut and preen, which incited
opponents. When Tipp broke out of Munster in 1987 Galway were fired up and
waiting. "It was their arrogance that got us going," says Conor Hayes, Galway
captain at the time. "They hadn't won an All-Ireland in 16 years but the vibes
coming off them was that they had a divine right to win one now. We had been in
the All-Ireland finals of 1985 and 1986 and if anything we were the ones who
should have felt that right. "A few years previously, in 1978, we had beaten them in an under-21 final and a year later they came back and beat us. I'll never forget the Tipp supporters leaving Portlaoise that day. They just thought they were going to win all round them."
Spleens, by their nature, are not entirely rational. Between 1940 and 1971
Limerick had failed to beat Cork in the championship, but when they assembled a
really good team in the early Seventies Tipp were the enemy they lined up
against the wall. It was reflex, informed by race memory.
"The same intensity wasn't there with Cork," says Eamon Cregan, Limerick
manager now and a player then. "We had watched the Tipp team of the Sixties and they were arrogant. They were good and they knew they were good. We had grown up looking at Tipp beating Limerick by 15, 20, 25 points and, consciously or unconsciously, most of that team in the Seventies said to themselves that they
wouldn't be beaten by Tipperary like that."
In places like Doon, three miles on the Limerick side of the border with
Tipperary, what each county thinks of the other is crystallised and magnified.
Doon CBS caters for both creeds: three-fifths Limerick, the rest Tipp. More
than half of the pupils bring a hurley to school and hurling is the common
currency of slagging and the only recognised arbiter of status.
Even there mindsets and postures are apparent. PJ McNamara, a Limerickman and teacher in the school, said once that by sight he could identify the hurlers on
the school team that were from Tipp, as if the special properties were passed
on by osmosis: "They have a little something about them, that little bit extra
in their attitude to the game. They're much more confident about hurling. Maybe
you could call it hardness, you could call it a lot of things. They have this
bit extra."
Conor O'Donovan played minor for his native Limerick but when work took him to
Tipperary he declared for them and went on to play under-21 and senior. The
difference struck him immediately. Tipp were still searching for the
All-Ireland which would take them 18 years to find, but their intrinsic
confidence was undiminished.
"When I played minor with Limerick you struggled for success because there was
no history of it. With Tipp, underage success was always there and there was an
expectation. But to Tipp that expectation was a positive thing, whereas in
Limerick it would just have added a burden of pressure."
For those 18 years Tipp took sustenance from the success of generations, like
a camel with its store of water. When they beat Kilkenny in the 1971
All-Ireland they headed the roll of honour with 22 titles, one ahead of Cork,
four clear of Kilkenny.
Their record against Kilkenny had been extraordinary; unbeaten between 1922
and 1966 in the championship and League finals. "Kilkenny for the hurlers,
Tipperary for the men," went the taunt. Pat Henderson, the former Kilkenny
hurler and manager, lived in Johnstown, but went to school in Thurles CBS.
"We were fiercely jealous of that fact that we couldn't beat them, but
wouldn't admit to it. When we beat them in the smallest match we'd crow about
it, and then they'd come back with the put-down that we hadn't beaten them
since 1922." Nothing was more elemental than the bottom line.
Henderson was playing when Kilkenny finally stood up to Tipperary and beat
them in the 1966 League final; a harsh match decided without a goal, 0-9 to
0-7. Two years later another League final was even more fierce, but then the
needle abated, as if the pus had come out of the sore. The All-Ireland final
three years later was without rancour.
Tipp, though, were not unused to attricious matches. Every so often their
familiarity with Cork broke into contempt and when Waterford came with a good
team between 1957 and 1963 they locked antlers with Tipp. On the face of it
there was no obvious reason why Tipp should antagonise Waterford. The border
they shared was football country on both sides and when Waterford had come with good teams in the Thirties and Forties it was Cork and Limerick who kept them down.
Yet in those six years they played at least three big matches with Tipp which
were laced with meanness. Of course, it would be wrong to say the phenomenon
was a mystery: "They were top dogs at the time," says Tom Cunningham, a
Waterford player then, "and they had a way of letting you know they were top
dogs."
That was simply it. "The rivalry we had with Cork was more intense than any of
them," says Tony Wall, a Tipperary great of the 1950s and 1960s, "but there was
no vitriol like there was with other counties. We had hard matches and forgot
about it. Cork never had an inferiority complex and we didn't either. We were
winning, Cork were winning - and the others weren't."
Nobody felt more strongly about Tipp than Ring, but behind it all he wouldn't
have been without them. When they were down he used to say that hurling was
only "half-dressed" without them.
Despite the bitterness between Galway and Tipp in the 1987-94 era there was
some good fellowship too. When Eanna Ryan lost the hearing in one ear after a
blow to the head, Bobby Ryan ran a bus to a fund-raising night for the Galway
player in New Inn.
But some things Galway players regarded as immutable truths. Over his long
career Conor Hayes shot the breeze with players of every hue, aristocrat and
artisan: "I found that Cork had an attitude that it was an awful burden to be
winning matches. With Kilkenny fellas it was a case of 'ye were the better
team, but ye lost' sort of thing. With Tipp, though, the impression was always,
'ye were lucky to be playing us'."
The tension with Galway has receded, Clare have picked up the cudgels. After
Clare there will be others. Tipp have never known peace. You wonder if they
would ever want it.