No quick fix to lift Tipperary Football from the mire

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary football has come to many crossroads over the years and it reached another one after Sunday’s loss to Waterford in the Munster Senior Championship quarter final in Dungarvan.

The defeat, Tipperary’s first to Waterford in championship football since 1988, was against a side arguably seen as the worst in senior inter-county football at the moment, even behind London and considering Tipp failed to beat both sides in the league, Sunday’s result wasn’t that much of a shock.

In fact, it has been almost a decade of the making, particularly since 2015 when Tipperary reached All-Ireland minor and under 21 football finals. That they lost both finals doesn’t take much gloss off the achievement of getting teams to such an esteemed level where they were competing with the likes of Tyrone and Kerry.

Many of the Tyrone and Kerry players that won those finals backboned the 2021 and 2022 All-Ireland senior wins for their respective counties. Tipperary did have their moments since, reaching All-Ireland semi-finals in 2016 and 2020, and of course the Munster title in 2020.

This was Tipperary’s golden generation and the likelihood was it was never going to stay like that, but no one thought that Tipp would just fall back to where they spent much of the last one hundred years, languishing in division 4 and struggling for results.

At underage, there are green shoots with encouraging results and performances at minor and under 20 level so far this season but at senior level, it is not going to be a quick fix.

When Paul Kelly took on the Tipperary job last November, he knew he was entering a period of transition but not even he would have thought it was going to start out like this.

Firstly, his hand wasn’t helped by the likes of Michael O’Reilly, Kevin Fahey, Colman Kennedy, and Liam McGrath opting off the squad from last year. Then, captain Steven O’Brien, Mark Russell, Conor Sweeney, and rising star Sean O’Connor were unable to start last weekend and left Tipperary short of experience and quality. A disciplinary issue saw Paddy Creedon not considered for selection and didn’t help things either as he is one of the few players with real class within the squad.

Tipperary don’t reappear for five weeks until the Tailteann Cup starts on May 11th & 12th, and on the face of it, the decision to allow the players back to their clubs for two weeks appears sound to allow for some freshness following such a disappointing defeat, but then there might be the fear that some players might be lured to the United States for the summer.

Considering the management have consistently said they were six weeks late starting, that five weeks where players could get fitter and also get more in tune with what the coaches want in terms of a gameplan would also have been beneficial.

This is not going to be an easy fix in the short term but the management and players need to stick together and come back with renewed hunger and vigour for the Tailteann Cup and use last Sunday’s low-point as being the start of the resurgence.