Murtagh Brennan is Loughmore/Castleiney also isnât he?
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Sheedy at Davos. Thatâs quite an image.
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Yes. Was high up in the Barracks in Athlone so a strange move to take on a role in Tipperary GAA.
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Thatâs fucking hilarious
Hurling is such a local obsession in Tipperary so where have the supporters gone?
Denis Walsh [Irish Times]
In Liam Cahillâs post-match huddle with reporters after Tipperary eviscerated Galway on the opening day of the National League nine questions were put to him. He wasnât asked about the Tipperary supporters, but in answer to the second last question Cahill brought them into the conversation, stepping on to a diplomatic tightrope. For balance he had a carrot and a stick.
âI mentioned bravery there earlier about the direction weâre going and the change we have to make,â he said. âIâd ask the Tipp supporters to be brave as well and come out and support them. Thereâs not much bravery in going up to Croke Park every year over the last decade for All-Ireland semi-finals and All-Ireland finals and all that.
âThese players will be around long after Iâm gone. Theyâre the catalyst to everything that gives us the joy that is being a Tipperary supporter.â
Cahill answers are rarely strangled by self censorship; he is straight and never short. But the cold distance between this team and the Tipperary public has troubled him for a while. In 2023, his first season as manager, they upended Clare in Ennis in the opening round of the championship and drew with Cork in PĂĄirc UĂ Chaoimh after a storming performance. In his post-match press conference that evening he applauded the âsmallâ Tipperary crowd who had been heavily âoutnumberedâ that evening and pleaded for reinforcements. For emphasis, he used the word âsmallâ twice.
A year earlier, when Tippâs season was sinking in quicksand under different management, they disturbed Limerick for an hour in the Gaelic Grounds, but it was alarming how few Tipperary supporters had travelled. Padraic Maher, who was one of Cahillâs selectors in 2023, tweeted about it at the time: âVery poor support for our boys in Limerick today,â he wrote. âThey deserve better.â
Against Cork last May the numbers reached a stultifying nadir. To have any chance of staying in the championship both teams needed to win; Semple Stadium, though, was bathed in red. Babs Keating was canvassing for the European Elections with the former GAA president Sean Kelly, and they stood on the brow of the railway bridge.
âAll we could see coming up the road was Cork supporters,â says Keating. âIt must have been 10 to 1. It was never seen before.â The attendance in Thurles that day was given as 43,792; at least 35,000 were from Cork.
In the GAA desertion is a common affliction. Every intercounty team is followed by a standing army of unblinking loyalists and a Dadâs Army of reservists, who prefer to avoid losing battles. In that respect, Tipp are no different from everybody else. But in a county of Tippâs size and history of success and livid passion for the game, everything is amplified. Winning is a carnival; losing is an opera.
âWhat I would compare it to is Manchester United,â says Tommy Dunne, the former Tipperary captain, selector and coach. âMan United are in the news every day. With Tipp there is a spotlight there all the time â and probably more so when things arenât going well. In Tipp you are expected to win. You measure yourself on really, really high standards. Thatâs the thing. When you lose there is hell to pay.
âI was only thinking the other day about when Cork beat us below in Killarney [2004 qualifiers]. I remember going into work two days after, ashamed of my life. F**king ashamed of my life. I was working in a place in Nenagh with 400 or 500 people and I was going around with the head down, hoping you wouldnât meet someone that was going to have a go at you about the match, or even just offer sympathy to you. You wouldnât know what to say. That was real life, and itâs not any different now Iâm sure.â
In every county there is a triangular relationship between the team, the supporters and the local media. Cahill has spent the last three years trying to navigate that space without impaling himself on the sharp corners. Last Sunday in his post-match comments he spoke, pointedly, about the âknowledgeable people who know the hurling landscape in Tippâ and understand that this team will need time; but he also referenced the âimpatient, less knowledgeable Tipperary hurling folk,â who will heckle that process. That intellectual divide is not unique to Tipp either; every manager must suffer it.
In many ways Cahill is hard-nosed, and he expects his players to be tough, but in some ways he is sensitive. After Tipp fell to their fourth defeat in last yearâs Munster championship Cahill was asked by Shane Brophy of the Nenagh Guardian if he would be staying on for the final year of his term. It was a perfectly legitimate question, but his response was prickly and defensive.
âI take umbrage to that question,â he said, before asserting that he enjoyed the support of the county board and the dressingroom. Managers donât necessarily need an overall majority. Cahill and Brophy continued the conversation in another room when the press conference finished and in the following weekâs Nenagh Guardian Brophy offered his side of the argument.
âThe Tipp manager did express his annoyance to me over the headline used in this paper last week describing Tipperary as âThe Whipping Boys of Munster,ââ wrote Brophy. âItâs not a nice headline, I agree. However, I stand by it. When you are losing championship games by 15 and 18 points to Limerick and Cork respectively there is no sugar-coating it â facts are facts ⌠I loved the fire in his response [to my question]. I was caught a little by surprise I admit, but Iâm a grown man, I can take it.â
In a phone call after the Tipperary county final five months later the two men resolved their differences. But nobody lives in a soundproofed room and the modern world bristles with noise. Cahill pays attention. JJ Kennedy has been writing his esteemed Westside column in the Nationalist newspaper since 1981 and last Monday night he appeared on Tipp FM to review the Galway game.
His contribution was balanced and temperate. The gist of it was that nobody should expect Tipp to win anything this year, but producing a competitive team was both achievable and necessary. In last yearâs Munster championship Tippâs scoring difference was minus 36 and there was a destructive pattern of final quarter fade-outs. Cahill accepts that they got the teamâs conditioning wrong.
But 16 new players have been added to the squad in the off-season, which is more churn than any other elite team in the country. After he came off air Cahill texted Kennedy, essentially to say thanks.
âLook heâs under pressure at the moment, thereâs no doubt about that,â says Kennedy. âHe has been taking a lot of flak. He is sensitive to that, and he does react to it. I was saying to him, the genuine followers know where Tipperary are at, and you canât work miracles. The other ones are just background noise.
âHurling is part of the daily conversation here in Tipperary and people take it very seriously. When things go bad criticism flies, and you just have to suck it up really.â
But if the game is such a local obsession where have the supporters gone? Michael Bourke is a former chairman of the county board and is now chairman of the Tipperary supportersâ club. When it was set up during Babs Keatingâs first stint as manager nearly 40 years ago it was the first such enterprise in the country, and in the years since they have raised more than âŹ8 million, a staggering amount.
Last year they raised nearly âŹ100,000. Supporters are still prepared to put their hands in their pockets. âMaybe some people are fickle in their view and they donât see prosperity,â says Bourke. âMaybe thereâs an expectation from our supporters that we should be in Croke Park every year, and that would be your dream â but that doesnât happen. Everyone hits a lean period. Now, Liam is bringing in a huge amount of young, energetic players, and they will capture the trust of the public.â
The absenteeism, though, is difficult to ignore or explain away. âItâs hard to make sense of it,â says Dunne. âIt means so much to many people and yet so many people donât go and follow the team. What I do remember from playing is the feeling that letting down supporters is the worst feeling in the world.
âIt happened a few times when we were playing and you never forget it. There is a responsibility there and that is part of playing for Tipp. There are certain standards that you must meet. That is a savage challenge for a group of players year after year. I was conscious of the pressure of being a Tipp player, Iâm certain about that. Did it affect me? Did it bother me? It did affect me. Thereâs no getting away from that.
âThe jersey weighs a bit heavier when things arenât right. But I still love the fact that it carries so much weight with the public. I still love it because it means something. We are a county of substance, of tradition, we are a county with history â thatâs still there.â
After the Cork game last year Dunne sent Cahill a text in solidarity. He says he wouldnât normally do something like that, but it was an excruciating a day for everyone who cared about the jersey. They had played together for a few years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and like Cahill Dunne had not been afraid to step into management, first with Declan Ryan and later with Liam Sheedy. On the sideline nobody wears a helmet.
âIt was as bad, if not worse [being involved in management],â he says. âMy perception is that the public look to the management first in terms of blame or accountability, and thatâs perfectly understandable. I remember the debacle of the All-Ireland semi-final in 2012 and the shame and embarrassment I felt [as a coach] incredibly hard. It was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. This feeling that we got it so badly wrong and it was on us.
âBut you step into those roles and the reality is that that kind of stuff is never far from your door. Thereâs no point in looking for sympathy or living in a pretence that itâs not going to happen because youâre only one performance away from negativity or maybe abuse. Iâm not saying thatâs right â thatâs just the way it is.
âBut every year I was involved with Tipperary I believed we could win a championship. Iâd be surprised if that still isnât in the Tipperary managerâs psyche right now. I think youâre hard-wired to think that. All logic might say, âyou canât, you shouldnât, you wonât.â But the hard-wired part of me says, âweâre Tipperary, and therefore anything is possible.â What are we if we lose that?â
That part is safe come what may.
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A good read, thanks for throwing it upđ
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Tipperary GAA is nowadays at a lower ebb than it was between 1971 and 1987 and this inaccurate and self-pitying article encapsulates it (âelite countyâ, etc,)
Theyâve now developed an obsession with childrenâs competitions and we know how that worked out in Limerick at the turn of the century.
They are where Cork were about 8 years ago when the arrogance had be tempered and the reality of the new order had to be embraced. Cork have made strides and are re-emerging as a force. Old money is no money in the modern game. Until that penny drops Tipperary will remain the laughing stock of Munster.
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Just thinking there with Robbie Ryan captaining Thurles CBS to win the Harty Cup on Saturday, its now three major trophies being won by Holycross captains in the last two years following Bryan OâMara captaining UL to a Fitzgibbon in 2023 and Cathal OâReilly captaining the Tipp Minors in 2024.
For good measure two further Holycross men, Joe Caesar and TiarnĂĄn Ryan were MOTM for Mary I and Tipperary in the 2024 Fitzgibbon Cup and All Ireland Minor Finals respectively.
A real golden age is brewing there.
Cork won the Munster championship 8 years ago and then again the following year.
I mean at underage and developmental level.
That makes very little sense. Tipp are performing well now at all underage levels. You may get the goading in now as theyâll be back at senior level in the not too distant future.
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The ould childrenâs hurling is a fairly new obsession. Great to see minor now lauded as a major trophy.
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Tipp my hole
Christ thatâs a clamping
Of course you did
Youâre completely missing the point. Or choosing to.
The most important part team for Tipp this year is the u20s, huge pressure on Cummins to deliver. If they donât win Munster at the very least it will be a major blow.
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Would you hazard a guess at a team?
With a lot of very good players being let go in recent weeks the picture might be getting a bit clearer.
Backs will likely be similar to last year, hopefully thereâs no sweeper.
Horgan
O Reilly
O Halloran
Quinlan/O Donnell
O Farrell
6?
O Callaghan
Foley
Daly
English
Mccormack
Costigan
Jamie Ormonde
O Donoghue
McCarthy
A lot more depth in the forwards, we may have to play o Farrell at 6 yet.
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Conor Martin will have to start in the forwards. Senan Butler seems to have lost form but will surely be there or thereabouts.
The nuclear option could be to bring OâDonoghue back out the field. He played centre back for the Minors in 2023.
Morris probably in the frame for a spot in the backs too.
Knew I was forgetting someone obvious. He will start at 9 or 11.
That may have to happen.
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