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Sunday Tribune
April 2008
Keep your friends close and. . .
Enda McEvoy
IN the week leading up to the 2002 All Ireland semi-final, the Tipperary management had the video of the 1991 final playing in the dressing room in Semple Stadium. It was more ambient noise than anything else; there was nothing blatant or overt about it, they didn't ram it down the players' throats, but Nicky English knew his history, knew all about Tipp's championship record against Kilkenny (he'd referred to it in his autobiography) and decided there was no harm in using it to try and give his boys an edge. Had Tipp won, Nicky's psychological wheeze would doubtless have been cited in evidence afterwards. But postmatch quotes are the songs of the victors, not the videos of the losers.
As it happened, the defending champions hurled well enough. The 2002 semi-final was, according to Tommy Dunne, "the crossroads in terms of putting All Irelands back to back, and we knew that beforehand". The Munster final defeat by Waterford had, in the manager's words, "knocked the corners off them", optimism was high, they created but missed a couple of goal chances in the first half at Croke Park and in the end it took a flash of DJ Carey genius to undo them. "A really high-quality game, " English reflects. "The amount of high catching, the level of skill. Our fellas gave everything they had on the day. You'd have to be proud of them, and I was.
Kilkenny deserved to win, just about, but it was close." As close as Tipp have come to reaching an All Ireland final in the meantime.
Yet the day the wheel turned in earnest and the traditional Tipperary-Kilkenny dynamic was seen to shift definitively to black and amber had still to arrive. There's a good case for pointing to the 2003 All Ireland semi-final, when Kilkenny handed their neighbours their heaviest championship defeat since Matt the Thresher was a juvenile, but put the gun to an understandably reluctant Dunne's head and he chooses the 2003 National League decider. Ten minutes from time at Croke Park on the Monday of the May bank holiday, with an understrength Tipperary leading by 4-13 to 211 having dominated the second half, there was only going to be one winner. Enter Charlie Carter; the holders hit 3-3 in the closing stages and Henry Shefflin, a more than decent minor footballer in his day, kicked the winning point in injury time. Kilkenny 5-14 Tipperary 5-13. It was the kind of mugging Tipperary were supposed to have spent generations inflicting on the fancy dans from across the Munster river.
That wasn't the end of it.
In addition to the mental damage they suffered, Tipp had lost Philly Maher and Noel Morris through injury. The poison from the sting was felt 13 days later when Clare scalped them in the opening round of the Munster championship. Tipp subsequently zombied their way through the summer until Kilkenny themselves applied the coup de grace in the All Ireland semi-final. "We were sitting ducks after the way we lost the league final, " Dunne recalls, "and Clare made us pay brutally. After that, everything in '03 went out the window. We were bruised by those two weeks and we never recovered. Terrible memories. Very tough to revisit."
A trend had been set.
Throughout the middle part of the decade Kilkenny weren't merely beating Tipperary at various levels, they were sewing it into them. Twelve points was the margin in the 2003 All Ireland semi-final, 14 in the 2002 minor final, 21 in the 2004 under-21 final, 12 in the 2006 league semi-final.
So, so different to an earlier epoch when meetings of the counties held out two certainties. Firstly, there would be blood and, secondly, Tipp would win . . . win the important clashes, anyway, as they did when seeing off Kilkenny in three league or Home league deciders in the 1950s and in two out of three showpieces in the competition in the 1960s.
"Kilkenny for the hurlers, Tipperary for the men": the old saw was grounded as much in league reality as in championship history.
If there was one moment that crystallised the paradigm shift it was not a Kilkenny score but a Kilkenny foul. During the first half of the 2003 semi-final, Noel Hickey drew a belt on Lar Corbett under the Hogan Stand. It was a stonewall case of striking with the hurley, but Pat O'Connor didn't want to know and Hickey remained on the field. The sight of a Kilkenny defender doing the heavy on it with a Tipperary forward and escaping led one outraged punter on Premierview to fulminate that in a different era the likes of Tommy Walsh and Eddie Brennan would have received "a good timbering" from the Tipp defence. God be with the days.
Since then it's become an article of faith that Kilkenny . . .
big and strong and only too happy to hurl on either side of the edge . . . are like Tipp used to be and Tipp are like Kilkenny used to be. Among the proponents of the theory is John Doyle. You can imagine the old warrior's chagrin; Kilkenny for the hurlers and, well, Kilkenny for the men. "You have to be able to match them for physicality, but you have to be able to match them for skill as well, " says Eoin Kelly. "Their use of the ball when they're in possession is probably Kilkenny's biggest strength. Standing up to them physically won't put the ball over the bar for you by itself. You train to gauge yourself against opponents like them."
Whereas Tipperary have more than enough borders and rivals to occupy their attention, for Kilkenny supporters of a certain age nothing stirs the blood . . . and the bile . . . the way sight or sound of the blue and gold jersey does.
One young man from Clara, born in 1966 and therefore a member of a generation that grew up feeling sorry for Tipperary rather than otherwise, made the cardinal error in the summer of 1987 of musing aloud that Slievenamon's stirring was "great for hurling".
He was promptly told by his father, a man of long memories, not to be saying such things and to reflect instead on the trials and tribulations of the poor people out in Callan and Kilmanagh who were "still getting abuse about Killarney in 1937" (Tipperary 3-11 Kilkenny 0-3) from their Tipp neighbours. The young man moved to Melbourne the following January and has lived there ever since. These occurrences may or may not be connected.
Sometimes, of course, we extract more meaning from matches than they're capable of bearing. Did the outcome of those 2002 minor and 2004 under-21 finals, for example, signify anything more than that Tipperary were blessed with a less talented crop of youngsters born in the 1983-85 period than Kilkenny (Tennyson, Power, Cha Fitz et al) were? Scarcely. Tipp beat Kilkenny by one point and four points respectively in the last two All Ireland minor semifinals, in each instance a good deal more comfortably than the margin suggested. The wheel will turn again in due course.
Forty years ago they glowered at one another in New York hotel elevators, now they drink with one another in bars on Third Avenue on All Star trips. Be sure that Eamon Corcoran and Henry Shefflin will still be best buddies at the final whistle today. Be sure that Eoin Kelly will shake hands afterwards with the three members of the opposition defence he was an All Ireland colleges' winner with in 2000. And be sure that there are many Kilkenny folk for whom Brian Cody's epitaph will not be complete unless it includes an All Ireland final victory against the old enemy.
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Sunday Tribune
17th Feburary 2008
Endless possibilities
TODAY'S feature at Semple Stadium throwing Tipperary and Limerick together yet again ("What do you call what comes after a trilogy?" as Liam Sheedy joked last Sunday), the obvious temptation is to rewind to last summer and start off there. You may nod in sympathy, for instance, at the thought of Eoin Kelly turning around after the home side went three points up at the end of the final instalment at the Gaelic Grounds, expecting to see Stephen Lucey and being confronted instead with the sight of 200 Limerick lads with flags careering towards him. You'll hardly be surprised, moreover, to hear that Eamon Corcoran's reaction on hearing the last whistle of the saga was not so much devastation as a desire to get himself off the pitch immediately if not sooner. But no, forget it; at this stage we're all Tipp-and-Limericked out.
Fresher and more relevant, therefore, to look instead at what's become of Tipperary in the meantime. How they remounted, took to the chicken-andchips circuit with gusto, beat Cork for the first time in 16 championship years, blew a winning position in the All Ireland quarter-final, lost their manager, found a new one, captured a second successive All Ireland minor title, won the Waterford Crystal Cup and sewed 2-25 into Offaly last Sunday. Maybe we didn't give them enough credit last summer for the way in which they got back on the horse and cleared so many hurdles in such a compressed and hectic timeframe. Maybe Babs did the statelet more service than was acknowledged by his blooding, whether through desire or through necessity of circumstance, of a string of youngsters. And maybe Tipp folk have concluded on mature reflection that their championship exit was less traumatic than it might have been. Infuriating as the manner of their quarterfinal defeat was, being bruised by Wexford was rather preferable to the possibility of being battered by the holders a week later.
All of which begs two questions. Now that the county's cycle appears to have bottomed out and entered the upswing again, how long before Tipperary win their next All Ireland? Less esoterically and more pressingly, how firmly grounded is the wave of optimism that has seized the county of late?
For genuine optimism exists, no argument there. "There's a good air of expectancy among the people who post on the site, " Conor Ryan of Premierview acknowledges. "They're happy with the management, who seem well organised and strict on discipline, and Loughmore-Castleiney winning the Munster club title was a boost as well. There's a number of factors at work. But I don't think anyone is expecting an All Ireland as an instant result of the minor victories."
The mood in the county is upbeat, Len Gaynor agrees. Too upbeat? "No, I don't think people are expecting too much at one go. If anything, people in Tipperary have become accustomed to having their expectations not realised.
What they're looking for is a team that will compete well in the Munster championship. After that they'll take it from there. Above all, people are ready to enjoy the team this year. That hasn't happened for a few years. There's a spark there now, definitely."
The man himself . . . the new man himself . . . is predictably anxious to apply a douche of cold water to the hype. Sheedy talks of handicap steeplechases and horses and fences, as in how Tipp have merely cleared the first couple of obstacles and have "far bigger ones" in front of them. He talks of Limerick and Galway and the difficulties they endured in harnessing proven under-age talent.
He talks of the length of time that has elapsed since Tipperary reached finals and semi-finals, never mind won them (2003 marked their last appearance in both the league decider and the All Ireland semi-finals). He even talks of the department in which his team will struggle if they do struggle: winning enough ball at midfield and in the half-forward line.
"I think people are getting a bit carried away around the two minor victories, " Sheedy asserts. "They are what they are: two minor victories. They don't give us a divine right to become serious All Ireland contenders overnight.
Supporters have to be patient and realise where we're coming from. The target for this year is to try and get back to Munster finals and All Ireland semi-finals."
There's an obvious gap in the southern market for Tipp to fill, what with Clare digging new foundations, Waterford arguably treading water and Cork emerging from the battlefield smoke and needing to rebuild anyway. Reaching an All Ireland semi-final via the front door this summer would constitute an eminently negotiable step forward rather than a great leap forward.
The make-up of the new backroom team provides abundant grounds for hope. Unlike his predecessor, Cian O'Neill, their physical trainer, comes from a GAA background and was involved with the Limerick footballers under Mickey Ned O'Sullivan. Jamesie O'Connor will happily spend time singing the praises of the coach Eamon O'Shea, his mentor at NUIG. Off the field, meanwhile, Tipp won't lack for statistical guidance, the county board having invested in the Avenir Digital Analysis company's SportsCode analysis software, leading-edge technology used by Manchester United, the IRFU and the FAI. That shot of Warren Gatland in his seat in the Millennium Stadium last Saturday surrounded by guys with laptops? That was SportsCode software with its live-review, minute-byminute output. Twiddle the settings and it'll tell you not only how many of your own puckouts you lost but in what areas of the field and why. The Tipperary operation will be overseen by the county's former sub-goalie Damien Young, who's doing his master's degree on the physiological demands of hurling.
Knowing where you're going wrong is one thing, of course. For all O'Shea's coaching nous, the chronic problems in the half-forward line, where Darragh Egan has yet to do more than decorate the frame of the picture or Ryan O'Dwyer to manage even that, will not be solved short term. For all Sheedy's excitement about its fast-twitch potential, does a full-forward line of Eoin Kelly, Lar Corbett and Pa Bourke have enough of the dog in it to win dirty ball in tight games? Will Corbett succeed in staying fit throughout the season, indeed? Of the gang that captured successive All Ireland minor titles . . . one of them via the back door . . . only Bourke, Seamus Callinan and Thomas Stapleton have graduated to senior ranks thus far. Brendan Maher is unlikely to be seen there for another year or two and Noel McGrath, the most dazzling prospect of the group, for longer. In short, let us not expect too much too soon from Tipp.
Eoin Kelly, who's zeroing in on his fighting weight of 13 stone, maintains that the biggest lesson they have to take from 2007 is the avoidance of complacency. "Every dog is due its day, whether it's the first round of the championship or an All Ireland quarter-final. We have to treat every game like it's the FA Cup final." Eamon Corcoran, who claims in passing that Tipp's packed schedule last summer "had no negative impact whatsoever on us . . . if anything, the opposite, " believes they have to learn to hurl consistently for the full 70 minutes. "The first half of the second game against Limerick, the second half of the Cork match . . . that was the best we hurled all year. But we didn't hurl that way often enough."
New manager, new coach, new technology, the old Eoin Kelly, a chunk of crystal already on the sideboard, the shorter straw in Munster and the realistic prospect of circumventing the accursed All Ireland quarter-final stage.
To repeat, every reason for optimism and every reason to believe that Tipp will punch their weight this year. For the moment, that'll do them.