New skipper O’Brien aiming for better second half of season

By Shane Brophy

2023 has been a frustrating campaign for everyone involved with the Tipperary senior footballers, none more so than for new captain Steven O’Brien.

The Ballina clubman has missed the last eight weeks through injury so was helpless to prevent the team from avoiding relegation as they made an immediate return to division 4 for the 2024 Allianz Football League.

“It’s coming along alright,” O’Brien said of the hamstring injury he initially sustained in the McGrath Cup game against Limerick in January but was exacerbated in the league defeat to Cavan in early February and hasn’t played since.

“It has just been a slow one,” he added, “a grade two hamstring tear but the problem was it was by a tendon so any time I felt a bit of pressure on it, it hurt the nerve which multiplies the pain, so it has been that bit slower.

“I’ve been out for eight weeks but hopefully I’ll be fit for the weekend.”

It’s the second successive league campaign that O’Brien has largely missed as a groin injury saw him miss much of the 2022 promotion year, only returning off the bench in the Munster Championship win over Waterford but was far from his best and had groin surgery last summer.

He’s hoping the hamstring injury is now behind him and hopes to play a leading part in the remainder of the inter-county season.

“You have to commend the group that are there, both management and players, for their resilience throughout the league,” he said.

“When results don’t go your way, it is very tough and it is tough to turn up week after week, but the lads have done that, through the management down to all the players.

“At the start of the league we were optimistic, even though we were down a few bodies from last year, we knew we were a semi-depleted squad but to then lose the players we did during the campaign such as Conor Sweeney and Conal Kennedy, that is a tough had to be dealt with.

“From there you can only work hard and put the head down and to be fair to the lads they have done that, even though it hasn’t been easy.”

In previous years, Tipp would have had a little time to regather themselves after a poor league before refocusing on championship. With the new championship structure, it is just two weeks from the end of the league to the start of the championship where Waterford come to Thurles for what is a winnable game but also a potential banana-skin.

“Be under no illusion, we are not taking Waterford for granted,” O’Brien insisted.

“The way results have gone; we haven’t earned the right to think like that. We are off the back of one point from a league campaign, so we aren’t looking past them.

“It’s a quick turnaround, it is not ideal whether it is a league campaign that goes well or badly, but you would have liked the time to breath a little and work on a couple of things but that’s just the way it is. We knew that from the outset, so it is about getting on with it.”

He added: “You look at the panel of players that are there, the majority are new lads, and a win would give them a boost in confidence.

“A win would give us a crack at Kerry, but you always want to have a crack at them. As a group of players coming up along, we have always played good matches against them,

“The Tailteann Cup, the big benefit of that this year is we are going to get three matches in it. We look for competitive championship games in the summer and that is what we are getting, you would be looking forward to things like that.”