IN ALL FAIRNESS - Mick Burns provided quite a legacy

There was a poignant moment last week which only served to highlight that inter-county hurling is more than just a game.

At the reposing of the late Mick Burns last Friday evening, to see his friend and teammate from that great Tipperary team, ‘Mackey’ McKenna so emotional, set almost everyone in the funeral home off as well, those who were fortunate enough to be there at that exact moment.

It showed that being on an All-Ireland winning team as they were on four occasions, they were a brotherhood, forged in spirit, as well as ability and skill, and goes to indicate why they were as good as they were on the field in their day.

With the passing of Mick Burns, we have lost another link to Tipperary hurling’s golden era of the late 1950’s and the early 1960’s when they won five All-Ireland titles in an eight-year spell. Mick was involved in all those successes, from a non-playing member in 1958 to a key member of the great team from 1961, 62, 64 & 65 when he made the number 5 jersey his own.

It's not often that one great replaces another, and with the enforced retirement of Jimmy Finn through injury opening up the right half back spot, Mick Burns not only filled it appropriately, but he enhanced it with his displays. Some players can get spooked by being asked to take the place of an all-time great, but the manner in which Mick Burns carried on the mantle spoke volumes about the man he was. He was never flustered on the pitch, and never bore his success too greatly off it.

The names of the players on the Tipperary teams from that era still continue to slip off the tongue, Maher, Doyle (John & Jimmy), Carey, Finn, Wall, Roche, Gaynor, Murphy, English, Devaney, McLoughlin, Keating, McKenna, Nealon etc.... They had a higher profile than Mick Burns, but all great teams need a corner-stone, a player who might not get much of the acclaim, but one who goes about his job in an unheralded but invaluable way and that is what Mick Burns was.

There can be fewer greater credits of a players performance than from the great John D. Hickey whose report of Tipp’s crushing 5-13 to 2-8 All-Ireland final win over Kilkenny, highlighted the performance of Mick Burns as being “magnificent” in curbing the effectiveness of one Eddie Keher. Quite the complement indeed!

Of course, he was Nenagh’s great hurling pride and joy and he crowned a great year in 1964 by skippering Eire Og to the North senior hurling title, just the third in their history at that point in history, and provided that iconic image of him being held aloft with the Frank McGrath Cup.

He was the first player in a major way to put hurling in the town on the map in a Tipperary sense and provide the inspiration for the next generation, including the like of Michael Cleary would follow.

Mick Burns got the send-off he deserved at his funeral mass on Saturday in Nenagh and was remembered at Croke Park later that evening with a minutes silence, although not before the Dublin v Tipperary hurling game which would have been the most appropriate time, but before the subsequent Dublin v Clare National Football League game as per GAA protocol prior to the playing of the national anthem. However, the vast majority of Tipperary supporters were not there for it as they had left the venue, many of whom like myself wondering why a minutes silence had not taken place, particularly with Mick’s association with Dublin having hurled with the Faugh’s and won league medals in 1961 and 1962.

Mick Burns will be remembered at Semple Stadium on Saturday week when Tipperary take on Waterford, and will be so long into the future as a legend of Tipperary hurling.