THE POWER WITHOUT THE GLORY
No medals..but we’ll play like champions
THIS evening, Tipperary start the defence of a Munster title that their manager David Power feels they never really got to fully savour.
When you think of such triumphs images of people thronging the streets to welcome home the victors immediately come to mind.
The homecoming would be supplemented by the trophy doing a tour of the schools and every drop of PR being squeezed from the achievement.
For Tipperary, there was a cavalcade of cars honking horns in Ballyporeen and that was about it.
That’s all there could be with the country in the depths of Level 5 restrictions. And there hasn’t been a chance to do anything more since.
“The players did their own thing,” says Power. “We couldn’t even go with the players because with social media and with everything, I wasn’t taking the chance – we haven’t celebrated the Munster Championship at all.
“We haven’t had a medal presentation, we haven’t went to the schools. Maybe that’s part of what happened maybe in the League as well.
“We haven’t really enjoyed being
Munster champions I suppose but, ultimately, it’s a day that we’ll never forget as well hopefully we will have that medal presentation later in the year and hopefully we will have a good celebration that night because what we did last November was something special and something that won’t be forgotten for a good while.”
Tipp may have broken an 85-year hoodoo last year, but you’d have to go back to 1928 for the last time they beat Kerry in Championship football.
Peter Keane’s charges appear to be in a particularly merciless mood as they come to Thurles this evening.
“We have to take the approach that we are defending Munster champions,” Power insists.
“Let’s prove to ourselves that what happened last year was not luck and was not a fluke and it wasn’t because of Bloody Sunday, that we are a good team. I think that’s the big motivation for us.
“Yes, if we perform to the highest that’s still not guaranteeing us to win but, at the same time, if we do perform at least we are going to be asking Kerry questions.”