Michael Ryan keeping Tipperary’s great expectations in check

Five years of failure clearly didn’t sit well with Tipperary but the task facing Michael Ryan and his squad as they digest the consequences of Sunday’s epic and epochal All-Ireland final defeat of Kilkenny is how to deal with such a victory.

Over 50 years have passed since the county’s hurlers were up to the task of putting All-Ireland titles back-to-back. The two claimed in the three seasons between 1989 and 1991 is, by a distance, the closest they have come to establishing anything like a span of dominance since.

Their failure to kick on from 2010 should focus minds.