TIPPED TO RULE FOR A DECADE
But it’s another lost summer under Ryan’s reign
IT FEELS like a cruel joke or maybe this season’s final insult. Tipperary are still in a state of shock after their hurlers’ earliest Championship exit in 20 years and their home hosts a party for which they no longer have an invite.
Watching Cork and Waterford folk amble up to Semple Stadium will only bring into sharp relief the emptiness of the summer that lies ahead.
Shock does strange things. All reason can be lost. Earlier this week, it transpired that West Tipperary chairman John O’Shea had been the victim of a hoax when quotes saying that Michael Ryan and his back-room team had ‘gone past their sell-by date’ had been wrongly attributed to him. Internet hackers went to the trouble of creating a fake Tipperary Star webpage, with the byline of one of their reporters.
The Tipperary County Board came out and backed the management on foot of what turned out to be fake news. Things were much simpler, and safer, when supporters just vented from their bar stools following a poor Championship.
Ryan was given a three-year term last September and by virtue of winning an All-Ireland in his maiden season, he was always going to be afforded the chance to repair the damage wrought by this disastrous campaign. If he wants it.
Still, it almost feels wrong that the most compelling hurling summer in history will play itself out with Tipperary off the stage. If, as Tommy Walsh memorably suggested, the new Championship is like Game of Thrones, it’s extraordinary that Tipp, of all teams, fill the role of Ned Stark.
A typically measured Ryan conceded last Sunday that there will be a lot from this year that will keep him up at night. Mis-steps were taken at critical junctures. Management made mistakes and the county itself was punished for trying to do the right thing. Some Tipperary players played three club Championship games in April whereas the Clare players didn’t play any.
That approach will have to be reviewed. And if Ryan and his management team do stay on, they will have to re-think how they treat the National League. There was a brouhaha before this April’s final in Nowlan Park that Tipp hadn’t won the competition in a decade. But what does that matter now?
Next season’s League campaign should be used as a testing ground to discover more about their fringe players and those 2016 All-Ireland-winning minors. If it means relegation, that will be a necessary price to pay. Tipp haven’t learnt an awful lot about themselves by staying in Division 1A.
A strain of experimentation did run through the entire spring — Ryan used 36 players during the League — but it simply seemed to confuse matters. It left Tipp with more questions than answers, especially after they were schooled by Kilkenny in Nowlan Park — Padraic Maher was the only defensive survivor from that game for the final Championship match. Walking into Semple Stadium last Sunday, none of their supporters were any the wiser to what their county’s best XV were.
Some supporters believe the difficulties of this season are traced back not to the League final, but February’s encounter in Nowlan Park when Tipperary, a couple of points up in the closing stages, had the chance to bury their old nemesis and failed to take it. If they had beaten the Cats that day, they could have slowed or hobbled their march to the League final.
For all the springtime experimentation, the Premier County still had the same issues in their defensive spine that has dogged them for years. And there has been too much chopping and changing in that defence. Galway have shown the need for a solid — and settled — spine. The fullback line need to be comfortable in each other’s company but Tipperary played a different full-back line in each of their four Championship matches.
In Ryan’s first season in charge, his nous as a teak-tough corner back seeped into the team. That All-Ireland was as much built on the backs as on their firepower, the 2-29 in the final aside. Cathal Barrett, James Barry and Michael Cahill formed the best full-back line in the game, evident in the fact that the team conceded just 5-80 across five games.
Last year, that line came apart. Barrett left the squad for disciplinary reasons. Cahill struggled with injury. The concession rate shot up to 6-99 over five games.
By this spring, Barrett was back in the fold but was being used to give the team some legs in midfield.
In Thurles last Sunday, Barrett and Ronan Maher were in centrefield when both were probably needed in defence. And in only four Championship games, they conceded 5-91.
The case of Barry is most curious of all. Having answered local critics with some of his displays, and with Ryan showing the utmost faith in his clubman, he was jettisoned after enduring a torrid afternoon in Walter Walsh’s company in the League final and hasn’t been seen since. Instead, an All-Ireland-winning half-back Seamus Kennedy was tried at the edge of the square.
When John Conlon was making a nuisance of himself during the second half last Sunday, the only answer that Tipp had was to move Pádraic Maher away from the half-back line to the edge of the square.
Despite all the experimentation, Tipperary still hadn’t found a solution to the problems in their defensive spine. As Galway have shown with Daithí Burke and Gearóid McInerney in front of him, it might be the starting point of an All-Ireland winning team.
Even allowing for injury, Seamus Callanan wasn’t at his best, Tipperary simply looked jaded for the past few weeks. Their players look worn and ragged. Contrary to what some have said in a television studio, this is still a team of young men. Callanan doesn’t turn 30 til September. Cahill only turned 29 in January. It’s just that they look older than they are. All those seasons chasing Kilkenny have taken its toll.
The majority of players — lumbered with the tag of Tipp’s golden generation — have played in six All-Ireland finals (including a replay), eight semi-finals and five League finals. That’s an awful lot of hurling for what has been, with the odd addition, basically the same group of hurlers.
If you were transported back to that mad September week in 2010, when, within a week of denying Kilkenny their five-in-a-row, five of the senior players were part of the Under 21s who crushed Galway by 25 points, and declared that those players would only claim two Celtic Crosses, nobody would believe you. At that point, it looked Tipperary would exert a dominance over hurling in the same manner that Dublin are now doing in football.
Pádraic Maher, Brendan Maher, Noel McGrath, Bonner Maher, Seamus Callanan, John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer and Michael Cahill were supposed to spearhead a special era for Tipperary. No more one-in-a-rows.
That it never materialised owes more to the defiance of Brian Cody and Kilkenny. Those magnificent servants owe Tipperary hurling nothing, as the manner in which Brendan Maher (left) put his body on the line and injured himself trying to dispossess Podge Collins in the move for Clare’s goal typified their spirit and desire.
There is a lot to reflect on during this longest of winters. Ryan may decide that the group might be re-energised by hearing a fresh voice — they have been listening to his voice in the dressing-room for nine of the past 11 seasons. Perhaps he has nothing left to tell them.
Another season slips by for the team that was supposed to dominate the decade. They may still have the final word. There’s every chance this group will come back in 2019, a refreshed force, determined to remind everyone of their existence. Book-ending this decade with All-Ireland wins isn’t quite the dominance that was promised in 2010, but that’s all Tipp can hope for now.
‘Mis-steps were taken by management at critical junctures’ ‘For a team still made up of young men, they look worn and ragged’