I'll put my stamp on this team - Cahill

By Shane Brophy

There was a haunted look on Liam Cahill’s face in the aftermath of this defeat to Galway.

For the second time in three championship games this summer, his team failed to fire and while they sailed close to the wind of championship elimination against Waterford in the Munster Championship, their luck ran out on Saturday as Galway edged through to the All-Ireland semi-finals.

“Bitterly disappointed,” was how he put his emotions.

“We just didn’t spark at all today and seemed to be labouring right through the game. “We gave ourselves a chance with seven, eight minutes to go and got it back to a point but continued to make unforced errors and even that aside, we were still lucky. I suppose that there was even a point in it with eight minutes to go, only for two or three great saves we’d have been in even bigger trouble, so all in all it’s a really disappointing day.”

Much like the Waterford game, Tipperary were sluggish right from the off but the fact that Galway were pretty much the same allowed them to stay on terms but the period either side of half time when they went from three to seven points down was ultimately where they lost the game.

“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” was Cahill’s response when asked about why they again lacked energy for a key game.

“The lads in fairness to them had prepared really well, they looked really sharp on Thursday night; we did very little from the Offaly game.

“Look, I just don’t know - it’s so disappointing for the players and the effort they put in. “But when you take over a team at any grade at any level you become emotionally involved and emotions are high here now.

“I’m disappointed personally to say the least, but disappointed for everybody involved in the setup. Never mind getting beaten, but when you get beaten not firing the way you know you’re capable of, it makes all that bit harder to swallow.”

Still, for all their faults and struggles on a gloomy mid-summers evening, Tipperary were within a puck of the ball from winning the game, even if it would have been undeserved.

“We never questioned our heart, our fight or our endeavour,” added the Tipp manager.

“These boys will fight to the end, we discussed how we were to play and some of us went away from it. And when you go away from the way you are meant to play and the way it’s laid out for you, it’s so disappointing from a manager and coach’s perspective.

“I know pressure does that and intensity in a game does that, but those boys have come through three or four massively intense games. No disrespect to the game today, but there were encounters a lot more intense than today, and just failed to execute what we went through, so it’s bitterly disappointing.

“But we’ll go back and do what all Tipperary people do, we’ll dust ourselves down and take the criticism that will come. We know that criticism will come, that’s part and parcel of being involved in a setup like Tipperary and we'll go back to the grindstone.”

Some of that criticism will be around allowing Galway to use Cathal Mannion as their spare man in defence, not pushing up on the Galway puckout from the start, and also the starting team, with many surprised to see Seamus Callanan start, as the former Tipp captain was subbed off at half time after an ineffectual first half, although not helped by the poor quality of ball sent in his, and Mark Kehoe’s direction, in the first half.

“Galway played exactly the way we spoke about,” Cahill said.

“Because of our lack of energy we didn’t seem to squeeze the way we committed to and I just said at half-time that I felt I was looking at a team that I couldn’t recognise. I felt I didn’t recognise the team that was playing in front of me today and I asked the players to come with something in the second half and, in fairness, they did.

“They came with everything in the second half but, again, good teams, real good teams, when they’re given a half chance like that, and Galway gave us a half chance today against the run of play, and we failed to capitalise on it. That’s the most disappointing part of it. As poor as we felt we performed, we still could have got something out of the game.

However, what Cahill said next was the most interesting part of his comments, hinting that his first year in charge, while a massive improvement on last year, wasn’t achieved in how he would like to envisage it.

“Myself and the lads in the management team, we’ll make changes. We will have to go about putting our own stamp on this,” he insisted.

“I suppose we've done reasonably okay to date getting to the quarter-final of the championship. But I’ll be rigorously going through the club championship this year to definitely freshen up the panel for next year, and definitely look at the young talent that’s out there to try and bring them into an environment that has the culture required to play for Tipperary, and hopefully deliver silverware in time.”

He added: “It will come right, days like today put you back to the grinding stone and you have to go at it, and that’s what we’ll do as a management team.

“We’ll go back and we’ll find the right players and make sure we have the players next year when it’s time to kick off all over again.”

He added: “We’re in the business of winning. I hope I’m not coming across as a sore loser, I’m not, but when you manage or play for Tipperary, you expect to win, like, and you expect to win playing with a bit of identity and our identity wasn’t there today and I’m not heaping the blame on the players, it’s just days like that.

“We had it in the last round of the Munster Championship as well. I’d love to be able to get the answers for it but answers for it might have to come from within rather than outside and we’ll try and find them answers as the winter unfolds. We’ve plenty of time now anyway, that’s for sure.”