Ryan lauds resilience as power base comes up trumps

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary manager Philly Ryan was surrounded by supporters and well-wishers as if his side had won a big championship after their win over Longford on Saturday on his home ground of Clonmel Sportsfield.

“It's special for the lads, and I think it's special for people who came to support them and see what they're capable of so absolutely delighted,” he began.

“The crowd that was here today it's a big crowd, but they’d be lost in Thurles.

“Look, I suppose it was a game we were behind in the whole time, but the lads showed great heart, great effort and resilience to keep coming back.

“We went in at half time two points down, but believe it or not, we were happy to be two points down because we weren’t playing well.

“The one thing we did learn from the lads and learned from training over the last few weeks is that there's a lot of stuff inside them, a lot of metal in there.

“We just keep going. We keep going to the end, that is the mantra, we keep going whatever happens, and I think they proved today, we kept going right to the end.”

He added: “The lad's never folded the towel. We have to take medical opinion on board and some of the lads had come off at a certain time in the game. They had given us everything that they could possibly give us; we couldn’t ask any more of them and the sub bench had a huge impact again so we're very happy with that. We're working towards the 37 man panel and trying to get everybody involved, so we're delighted with the win. It keeps us in the hunt, three points from four, we won't argue with that one.”

One of the players being minded is captain Steven O’Brien who played the majority of the game as one of Tipperary’s three players they retained in the attacking half, to maximise his time on the field.

“Steven has had a lot of injury issues; he has a lot of miles on the clock, so we have to take the advice of the professional people that are around him, and that is what we intend doing; we want to get the best of Steven in the longer rather than the short term,” Philly revealed.

The trail rules as much as anything intrigued the big crowd that braved the blustery wet conditions at Clonmel Sportsfield, one of which was the new two-point arc with Mark Russell’s injury time score turning a one point deficit into a one point win.

“Mark has that and his locker, he has a fantastic boot on him,” Philly continued.

“There's a few lads in there that have that two pointer in their repertoire. It's not something we're doing with them. We are looking for one pointers and goals, if we can get them, we're looking to be clinical in front of the goal.

“The new rules are difficult, you saw the three-on-three, at times lads found it hard. Your lifetime habit comes into that, you're a chasing the game, and you go back over your own halfway line. Luckily enough, we are adapting quite well to them.”

“We are trying to keep a bit of depth to our play, keeping two inside and maybe play one or two outside. We're always trying to look at three or four fellows as options, and that will, if we can create that space from inside, it allows the players with the boots on them to come from the outside arc.”

With three points from four after two games, Tipperary head into their first rest weekend in good fettle with matches to come against Waterford and London, but Ryan isn’t getting ahead of himself in terms of making a promotion push at this early stage.

“We are just taking every game as it comes along, The lads, a few of them will have played, and I know what stung them last year to lose the Waterford, and that's no disrespect to Waterford or any other team.

“The lads will be looking to push on the league, not just against Waterford. We wanted to be in the hunt after this, we wanted to come to Clonmel after Carlow with a result, and that's what we did that.

“We are a young team. Last Saturday (against Carlow), we had sixth debutantes, two more started from the bench. You can see the way the lads are applying themselves. We have 37 on the panel, everybody's pushing from 37 back down to one,” he said.