Tipp have come on quickly under Sullivan
By Shane Brophy
In his first year as Tipperary junior camogie manager, David Sullivan and his charges couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start.
A 4-20 to 0-2 defeat to Cork in the opening round of the national league was a serious grounding for everyone involved of the work that needed to be done to get Tipperary’s second team back to being competitive again.
“It was a steep learning curve for everyone that day,” admitted the Lorrha man.
“Since then, we have built great resilience and raised the standard a good bit because we knew what we did that day just wasn’t good enough. We have improved a tonne since then and to think six months on we are now in an All-Ireland Final in Croke Park is testament to the work we are doing and the commitment of the girls.
“It is a great sense of pride that we are there, it is a long time since Tipperary camogie has been in Croke Park, the first team in seventeen years to represent the county on the biggest day of the camogie year is fantastic, so we are really looking forward to it.”
In the league, Tipp managed to recover to win two games out of four, all against teams playing in the intermediate championship whereas Tipperary are in the junior grade having been relegated in 2021 and failed to get out of the group stages of last year’s premier junior championship.
“One of the ambitions we set at the start of the year that we want to be a county that is competitive year on year,” Sullivan added.
“We need the second team to be as close as possible to the first team as it entices more players to play for us and also enticed more girls off the senior panel to drop down one level.
“But Clare are standing in our way, and they have progression in their sights as well and want their second team to be intermediate as well to keep the gap close to their first team.
“We are under no illusion, this is going to be a massive challenge, but we need to get back to intermediate.
“The junior competition is fantastic, and I fully endorse it but some of the winning margins we have had in the championship this year is doing us no good either with 10, 14 and 29 points being the winning margins and at the end of the day if we want to get girls going onto play senior, we need to move up a grade.”
Tipperary’s second team can be a difficult sell to players who might feel they are good enough to be on the senior panel, while as David explained, the junior championship so far hasn’t been exactly challenging for his players.
“When I got the job last September, I spent three months going around looking at club games and drew up 80 names and rang a lot of girls. I won’t be dishonest in saying some girls didn’t want to play for the juniors and that is the reality of it. Some girls came in and it just wasn’t for them, and they left.
“In fairness to the 27 girls that are here now, they all that want to be here and are committed to being here and having trained over one hundred times.
“When I started this job, I never mentioned the word junior. I said you are getting a chance to play for Tipperary and the greatest pride you can get is to play for Tipperary whether it is minor, junior, or senior.
“The girls have bought into that too and they were looking for that too, looking for structure and a little bit of drive and focus, not just a case of just turning up. The girls have set a standard themselves and put in a huge commitment, and they are calling things out themselves when it is not being given either which is a great place to be as a manager knowing you have that in a group of players.”
Sullivan will be familiar with Sunday’s final opponents in Clare having managed Scariff-Ogonelloe to county and Munster club titles in 2021, as part of a lengthy managerial career for the 35-year old who has also managed clubs in Galway and Tipperary, including Silvermines and his native Lorrha.
“It has been an eye-opener,” he said of the step-up to inter-county management.
“The commitment levels are massive. It’s nearly forty hours a week on top of a full-time job as well so it is a massive commitment, but it is hugely rewarding when you go into a dressing room and get into a huddle and there are 32 people with you are giving the exact same effort.
“It is a challenge I have enjoyed. It was the next step in my career, I have been on the club circuit for fifteen years waiting for this opportunity to come along. I didn’t take this position last year, but it came back around this year, and it was a no brainer to get involved and I always knew there was an All-Ireland junior appearance in this side, if not winning it.
“The path has opened up in front of me and we went for it.”
He added: “I know a lot about them from my time with Scariff/Ogonelloe, they have four girls on the panel, so I’d be well aware of a lot of their key players.
“They are a serious outfit; they are working off the hurt of last year when they lost in double-extra time to Antrim in the semi-final. Credit to them, they have got themselves together and got back to the final stage and we don’t underestimate the challenge.
“The good thing about it is both teams try to play the game in the same way, expansive hurling that is up and down the field so it should be an enjoyable game.”