That’s Brother Pruntys father.
1 Like
Good article about Cahill and Bevans in the times today. Bevans seems like some detail. Said when he took over his first club in Tipp he asked the chairman for photos of each player, greeted them all by name when they entered the room for their first team meeting.
3 Likes
Can you post it up please?
Mikey Bevans and Liam Cahill transformed Tipperary — both on and off the field
Before Bevans met the upper-church group he asked the chairman for a photograph of every player so that, at the first meeting, he was able to greet strangers by their names. “It really caught us off guard,” says James Barry, the former Tipperary player and Upperchurch clubman. “There were 25 or 30 players in the room, and he knew us all. There are plenty of journey men coaches around the place, not really meaning what they do. It made us think, ‘He’s serious about us’.”
At the same meeting he asked everybody to write two lines about everybody else in the group, in their own time. Bevans collated all of the emailed replies and each player received a document, glowing with warm testimonials, the kind of stuff that is usually trapped behind sealed lips and male reserve.
Before a ball was struck, Bevans had reached out to them as people. Without making it feel like an intrusion he drifted into their personal space. In a cut-throat championship they turned into dangerous opponents for all. In two years, says Barry, “the whole culture of the club changed. He set standards. The impression he made was huge.”
Earlier this year Bevans gave a presentation at a coaching seminar staged by the Tipperary county board, where he spoke about his initiation with Upperchurch, and how he felt when the cold call landed. “Fear was the big one,” Bevans said. “I had massive fear. I couldn’t see myself doing it. But something sparked in me. After the very first training session, I was obsessed.”
Bevans is in Waterford now, co-creator of the story that has electrified the hurling championship. At every opportunity, Liam Cahill eulogises Bevans. For the past six seasons they have been in a yin and yang relationship, ever since Cahill realised he had tried to do too much in his first year as Tipperary minor manager and asked Bevans to share the load.
In 2015, their first year together, Tipp reached the All-Ireland final; a year later they won it. By the time they finished with Tipp at the end of 2019 they had delivered two more All-Irelands, one at under-21 level, another at under-20. A generation of Tipperary players had been steeled for the climbs ahead.
Sponsored
Their paths first crossed as teenagers, on Tipperary age-grade teams in the mid-1990s. Bevans was a wispy corner forward, with spindly legs, a ponytail, deadly skill, and a giant heart. While Cahill was finding his way as a breakthrough star with the Tipperary seniors, Bevans was winning Fitzgibbon Cups with Waterford IT.
Tipp kept an eye on Bevans, and he made fleeting appearances in the league, but they reached an early conclusion about his prospects that was never reversed. Instead, the club championship was his arena — with Toomevara, Bevans won a staggering ten county medals, a pivotal player on a powerful team.
“Mikey was ahead of his time,” says Eamon Corcoran, the former Tipp player who hurled with Bevans in college, “in his movement as a forward. He used to ghost away from players [to get the ball] and when he had it, he’d always take you on, looking for the inside shoulder. You can see it in the Waterford forwards now, the way they’re playing. Same thing.”
Derek McGrath, the former Waterford manager, noticed that detail when Waterford played Tipperary in the league before the first lockdown. Jack Fagan won a ball and immediately tried a shot; Bevans ran straight into Fagan, said McGrath, and with his next possession, Fagan took on his man. Last Saturday they ran at Kilkenny in pulverising waves.
A recurring pattern emerged. The teams that Cahill and Bevans produced were fit, direct, united and hard-nosed. Training was designed to attack their players’ limits. Cahill said that he had no mind to send “soft” young fellas through the system.
“They gave us a lot of structure and a lot of guidance,” says Mark Kehoe, who won three All-Irelands with Cahill and Bevans and played senior championship this year. “They always wanted training to be tough. There was never an easy session. You got it into your head what training was going to be like every night, so you were always ready for it.
“It wasn’t a really complicated approach to hurling. You always knew in your mind going out on to the pitch what you had to do. They never overcomplicated things. They put a lot of trust in the players they had.”
Intensity and ferocity are the foundation of everything they do. At the coaching seminar Bevans illustrated a couple of drills that he uses to develop work-rate. In one of them, two players must sprint, flat-out, for 30 seconds, and then try to dispossess four fresh players in a condensed space, while their lungs are burning and their heads are spinning.
“It’s great to get players to empty themselves,” said Bevans, “and understand what work-rate feels like. Their guts would be hanging out after 30 seconds. I get very excited doing those drills. You find out so much about your players.
“I’m always thinking when I’m watching someone hurling, ‘What’s his personality?’ As in life, everyone’s true personality will come out when they’re under pressure. You’re always looking. ‘What does he stand for? What motivates him? What’s he saying about himself as he’s hurling?’”
Since the beginning of the year, every whisper that emerged from Waterford was that their training sessions were brutally tough. Playing their third game in 14 days last Saturday, their power and endurance in the final quarter seemed to verify that. The battle-weariness that had haunted them for two years had been exorcised.
Around Cahill is a tight and trusted team that has been together since 2015. All of them are from Tipp: Tommy Ryan, who leads the strength and conditioning work, comes from Thurles; Kevin O’Sullivan, his goalkeeping coach and advisor, hails from Cashel; Sandra Molloy, their sports psychologist, shares Cahill’s roots in Ballingarry; Paddy Julian, their physio, is from Cappawhite. For six years they’ve been on the same road.
This year Cahill added Martin Bennett, a sprint coach who has worked with a string of intercounty players, going right back to Tony Griffin in Clare, in his All-Star season, 14 years ago. Bennett’s proposition is simple. Sprinting is a skill and, with the right mechanics, speed can be acquired. In the GAA, though, all of that stuff is mostly ignored. Cahill wanted a team with an explosive edge; Bennett was a perfect fit.
It has come together, gloriously. Two of the most exhilarating attacking performances of the championship have been produced by Waterford in the past fortnight; last Saturday they scored 2-17 in the second half, an astonishing 2-16 from play. Bevan’s influence was all over it.
“He’s similar enough to Eamon O’Shea [Tipp’s celebrated forwards coach],” says Barry. “One thing Eamon always spoke about was that you get the best out of players when you let them be themselves. That’s what Mikey does.”
For certain, he has connected with another group. Corcoran knew Bevans well in college, but their paths have crossed again in later life, this time as neighbours. Through the years, the essence of him hadn’t changed. “There’s a likeability factor about Mikey,” says Corcoran, “that not everybody has. You really want to do it for him. There’s different ways to lead. Mikey is the kind that inspires.”
At the coaching seminar, Bevans tried to explain himself. Without using the word, what he described was authenticity. “It’s very important to be yourself. That’s one thing that gives me confidence. I’m not trying to be anybody else. This is me, as a coach, or as a person, in front of a group. I can relax when I have that thought process.”
The voyage continues. Full speed.
On TV next Sunday
All-Ireland SHC final
2.45pm RTE2, Throw-in 3.30pm
16 Likes
3 Abbeyside lads started Michael Hogan, Maurice McHugh and Paidi O Connor. Duck Whelan was a sub. We didn’t have a minor team that year. And of course Johnny O Connor was midfield on the senior team the same afternoon.
Wasn’t Kieran O Connor (WLR) brother wing back on the 59 team club Cappoquin yet Kieran is Abbeyside?
Didn’t Duck Whelan have an IRA history also or am I mistaken?
Yeh Kieran is from Cappoquin but been living in Abbeyside for a long time now and his youngfella plays with us.
1 Like
I didn’t know he was Cappoquin originally
Yip, not sure of the details, think it was something to do with gun running, will have to ask my father. I do know though that he was suspended from his position as principal in Kilmacthomas and the role remained unfilled until he was reinstated.
1 Like
Duck received a two year suspended sentence for his part in trying to smuggle Libyan weapons in to Helvick on the Claudia.
3 Likes
What year did that happen?
Chicken O’Connor that owned Cappoquin Chickens? It was a bad omen in 2008 when Cappoquin Chickens went bust and into examinership the week before the 2008 final.
72 or 73
My father in law used to tell a few yarns about Duck. Duck was school Principal in Kilmacthomas. He got suspended by the Department of Education for a few years for his gun running activities. The Department advertised for the Principal’s job on a number of occasions but nobody applied to take it. When Duck had served out his suspension, he applied for his old job and was reinstated as Principal.
2 Likes
Yeah he did. He was a school teacher in Kilmac and was fired because of those Connections. He was subsequently reinstated as the students of the school went out on strike in support of him.
73 it was - Paddy Donegan was the new Minister for Defence and sent the German crew of the Claudia out of Irish waters with a ‘kick up the transom’
He got a 2-year suspended sentence which led to an automatic 7-year disbarring from any State job at the time. This was the case until a challenge, by another VEC teacher, in Longford who was similarly disbarred following charges arising from Operation Mallard in 87.
1 Like
The meteoric rise and fall of Bevan’s over the space of three weeks could be fascinating to watch.
Theres going to be some amount of bullshitters copying this come the new season. Better than Mi-Wadi and marieta biscuits I suppose,
3 Likes
Is it pronounced Bee-vans or Bev-ans?
Both Brendan Cummins and Derek McGrath have used option 1 on The Sunday Game in recent weeks, but it strikes me as ridiculous. That said, a man should dictate how his name is pronounced.