THE BUD BOSS IS EYEING CHANGE

MICHAEL RYAN believes a rethink is required in Tipperary after seeing his side crash out of the Championship.

Ryan feels a different slant will need to be put on the League campaign next year after the Premier County failed to win any of their four Munster Championship matches.

And he wants the club fixture programme revised after some of his players played four games in April.

Ryan said: “From my perspective, no way can we continue to try and do what we were trying to do.

“To dedicate the month of April to three or four competitive games – for anyone that’s playing senior hurling and senior football and just expecting to turn out four days in a row here.

“It’s too big of an ask but it’s not the reason why we went out. We had performance issues that we didn’t reach but that’s internal stuff as opposed to external.”

Ryan, however, felt that yesterday’s display was still the best they had produced in the campaign despite the outcome.

He added: “If we had found that level of performance in the other games, we may have taken something out of this Championship.

“Our lot is that we are are one of the two that won’t go forward.

“Clare are a quality side and I’d say that’s the best they’ve played too. That’s a great win for them. It will do a huge amount for their confidence.”

Ryan has two years left on his term as manager and will take time to mull over his future after three seasons in the role.

He said: “Any decision that we make on that, we’ll make them in the cold light of day. There’s never any good decisions made immediately after a match, be it a win or a loss.

“The only thing we care about is a very fine bunch of players inside there in that dressing room.”

Apart from Galway’s win over Dublin in a dead rubber on Saturday, no team in Leinster or Munster has won a game after playing on three or more consecutive weekends.

But Ryan insisted: “I didn’t see fatigue, if anything I saw the opposite. That was our best performance out of four albeit we didn’t get anything out of it.

“I know the writing was on the wall for us. We had to deliver a performance today to have a chance. I don’t think it hurt us today.

“I don’t think it’s perfect, that some teams get a break and some don’t. I know that they are going to alter that next year but that’s not the solution in my opinion.

“How do you get it right with five teams?

You need another team to fix that, so that everybody could get a break.” AUSTRALIAN RULES