Hard work at underage rewarded

Tipperary are All-Ireland champions again and all is right with the world.

When the Premier County don’t taste All-Ireland glory in any year, it is deemed as a failure, that is the harsh reality of the demands in a hurling mad county, but success is never too far away when you get a good group of committed players and an excellent management team and County Board chairperson Joe Kennedy noted the manner in which it was achieved.

“Whether we won or lost today, the manner in which this team has played all year has been fantastic,” he began.

“As time ticked on into injury time and we were two points down after throwing everything at it, we might not have played at our best but the only to be ahead is at the final whistle and these lads never gave up all year and got their just rewards today.

“Today our character was tested to the fullest. We might have lost some of the stylish hurling battles, but we were six points down and a man down with ten minutes to go and they stayed at it and at it. Maybe when most people thought it was gone, they still stayed at it.”

Kennedy had particular praise for manager James Woodlock who took on the role at a difficult time during Covid when he has limited time to get a team, both on and off the field, in place.

“James Woodlock was appointed during the Covid lockdown (2021),” Kennedy added

“He had only one or two members of the previous panel, so he had to build a new team and had to hold trials and prepare a team for a championship in twelve weeks. He just didn’t get enough time.

“You can say other teams were in the same boat, but he learnt a lot from that and what he needed to bring to the table. He has brought it in spades this year.

“I give James a lot of the credit, he has built a fantastic team around him, the selectors, S&C, nutritionists, the whole lot, they are a fantastic team and have done fantastic work through the year to get the team to this level and maybe it might cheap to say but maybe our fitness told coming down the last four to five minutes as we had the legs to stay going.”

The win gives Tipperary GAA a much-needed shot in the arm going into the inter-county off-season but for these minors, the focus won’t come off them for long and key will be ensuring as many of them as possible transition to under 20 and senior grade in the coming years.

“That is the main thing,” Kennedy said.

“Underage, whether it is minor, whether it is at seventeen or eighteen it doesn’t matter, it is about building for the future.

“Someone put up a note that Tipp won a minor All-Ireland in 1982 and Colm Bonnar was the only man who was on the Tipp team seven years later when they won the senior All-Ireland in 1989 so it is what you after minor is as important as what you do at minor.”

He added: “There is a lot of work going on in games’ development. Maybe it is a bit of an excuse to say Covid upset us, but it did, but we have done a lot of work this year and Woodie and the boys have done great work for the last six months. I am delighted for them especially that they got their just reward today.”