New format has shown players true light - Dunne

Tommy Dunne has experienced a lot in his playing and coaching career with both Toomevara and Tipperary but the manner in which his county minor hurlers progressed to next Sunday’s Munster final was surreal for him.

In the new round-robin format, Tipperary were idle on the final weekend as Clare, Limerick, Cork and Waterford played it out with the Premier County wondering would their score difference on top of two wins from four be enough to squeeze through and in the end it was.

“It was strange,” admitted the Tipperary manager as Waterford’s defeat by Cork proved to be the decisive result to see them into the final against Limerick.

“Once that happened there has been a great buzz of excitement to get down to the nitty-gritty of preparing which we did from last week.

“The whole format is a new development and is a new experience where you are not used to relying on other teams to do you a favor; you're are not relying on other teams in terms of score difference.

“It's the way it is, you accept is obviously as that's the rules of the competition.

“It's a new thing for everyone. The way the thing was were just focused on trying to win your match whoever that was against, by how much you won by at the time wasn't that important to me as the matches were unfolding, it was trying to get the wins and the two points in the bag to move on.

“It turns out in the wind up that every goal and point we got were relevant to us and was the difference in terms of us making the final and not making the final.”

 

To read more, pick up a copy of this weeks Nenagh Guardian locally or subscribe to our e-paper to access it online each Wednesday.