Tipp Skipper hopes Kerry clash will inspire hurting troops

By Shane Brophy

Sport can be fickle, just when you think you have it figured out, it bites you in the behind.

That is the fate that has befallen the Tipperary footballers in 2021. Just over six months after one of their greatest days in recent times, winning a Munster senior title for the first time in 85, they now find themselves floundering for form ahead of the defence of that title, after a difficult league campaign which saw them relegated to division four.

Not only have they to overcome that, but they also face the might of a rejuvenated Kerry in their first championship match as defending championships. This wasn’t how they had it planned out.

“It has been a tough few weeks for us to be fair,” admitted skipper Conor Sweeney who didn’t shy away from the fact that they aren’t going into the championship in an ideal way.

“The league didn’t go as planned obviously so that brought its own problems, and now with Kerry around the corner, who are probably playing the best football they have played in a number of years, so that is a daunting task.”

Coming into the 2021 season as Munster champions, Tipperary had hoped to use it as a springboard to further progress, however, the combination of player unavailability and injuries saw them struggle throughout the league, losing two of their three group games, before succumbing to relegation in disappointing fashion at the hands of Longford.

“The performance against Longford was poor but the league campaign overall was just very disappointing, we just never got going,” Sweeney added.

“It is very hard to put your finger on why that was. We were down a lot of players from last year; if you look back to the All-Ireland semi-final, we were down Colin O’Riordan, Liam Casey, Michael Quinlivan, Bill Maher, Robbie Kiely, Kevin Fahey, that’s nearly half a team.

“The other factor is that it just didn’t happen for us; it wasn’t for the lack of workrate or honesty. We felt we would have worked hard in pre-season during lockdown, and then collectively the three weeks before the league and we felt we were in a good place going into the league, but it just didn’t happen.

“Training since the Longford game has gone quite well and if you can’t get your head right for one of the two best teams in the country at the moment, I don’t know what you are doing.”

Of the aforementioned players missing for much of the league campaign were the entire starting halfback line of 2020 with Kevin Fahey only starting one of the four games, Bill Maher appearing as a sub for just twenty minutes against Offaly, while Robbie Kiely didn’t feature at all with a hamstring injury. It isn’t just in a defensive sense they were missed, but also as a platform of their attacking play, according to Sweeney.

“You probably don’t realise how important the half back line are, or those players are until they are missing,” he said.

“When the three of them are gone together it really opens up your eyes. They are a starting point for our attack. The three boys individually have a really attack-minded mindset, they like going forward and break at pace the three of them, they are good strike runners, they can all play ball and they love the offensive side of their game so when you are missing one or two it is tough but when you are missing all three you are taking away that threat we have coming from the backs.

“The lads that have come in have done well but those lads that are missing are real leaders, they are top quality footballs, the three of them are All-Star nominees over the last number of years so when you are missing that level of experience and quality it is going to be tough.

So as captain, has Conor Sweeney had to assume extra responsibility in recent weeks to help lift morale in the camp ahead of the championship.

“It would the exact opposite, I would be saying a lot less,” he revealed.

“Sometimes you can do too much talking as sometimes you can be talking for the sake of talking and people can get fed up of you fairly quickly.

“It has been tough as a group. That is sport. Six months ago, was probably the best time we ever had in the jersey, so you have to take the good with the bad. When things were going well last year you are not going well as you think and then things are going badly you are not as bad as you think, so you need to take it all with a pinch of salt.

“My role hasn’t changed, we have a lot of leaders in the group, we are all trying to rally around and get ready for the biggest game of the year for us. We are trying to stay positive, but we have been here before and been in tough situations, but we have come out of it, and I expect nothing else from this group of players as well.”

Despite Tipperary’s poor form in 2021, it is easy to forget that they are defending Munster champions, as they welcome Kerry to Semple Stadium on Saturday evening and Sweeney hopes he and his teammates can use that to their advantage after what they achieved last year.

“It was just an incredible year and we prepared really well,” Sweeney recalls of last year’s Munster success.

“Last year was incredible and something no-one can take away from us and we will always have it.”