Anthony Daly: Future is irrelevant when you’re scrambling
Tipperary manager Colm Bonnar.
When Colm Bonnar took the Tipperary job last year, a lot of the background noise was framed around Liam Cahill turning the role down and choosing to stay with Waterford. Some of the commentary in the aftermath was unkind to Colm, especially when it was portrayed that he wasn’t even the second or third choice of the board and that he was effectively appointed through a process of elimination.
That was unfair considering the huge experience the man has accumulated as a manager and coach with Tipp, Waterford, Carlow, Kilkenny, with Ballyhale Shamrocks, along three decades of incredible service with IT Waterford. Tipp may have been Colm’s first marquee job as an inter-county manager but any of the critics who accused Bonner of not being modern enough clearly didn’t examine his CV. Outside of Brian Cody, no other inter-county manager in the Liam MacCarthy Cup can claim to have anything near Colm’s level of experience.
Taking over from Liam Sheedy was going to be a difficult job for anyone but that task was set to be even more difficult again with Tipp entering a transitional period. Colm would have been fully aware of what needed to be done, but, when he assessed the cards he had to work with last October, there’s no way he could have envisaged how that hand has fallen asunder in such a short time-span.
If I was ever taking on a role as a new manager, having the confidence in myself to do that job to the best of my ability would stem from the confidence I’d have in the players at my disposal. Of course you’d always like to think that you can make it better but you can’t just magically replace good players when you suddenly don’t have them anymore.
What’s more, Tipp haven’t just lost good players – they’ve lost generational hurlers, some of the best to ever hurl for Tipp; Brendan Maher had already retired but the suddenness of Pádraic Maher’s retirement had to be a psychological hammer blow. The injury to Seamus Callanan on the eve of the championship exacerbated that blow even more.
The magic in John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer’s hands still looked capable of sorcery for another few seasons, while other good players – Niall O’Meara, Willie Connors – aren’t around either. Neither is Bryan O’Mara, who was man-of-the-match for UL in the Fitzgibbon Cup final.
After two opening defeats, a bad situation has now only got worse. John McGrath had his surgery during the week after rupturing his Achilles tendon. James Quigley and Jason Forde are also out with injury.
I’m sure Colm thought that he’d get more out of John McGrath than Tipp did last year, while he’d have expected Forde to drive on too after he had been developing into a formidable number 11, having looked untouchable there in the first half of the 2021 Munster final.
Other teams have lost players too, especially Clare, but they haven’t been drained of as many nailed on starters. Clare have been able to withstand those losses by getting back two of their best players, Shane O’Donnell and Peter Duggan.
Tipp have introduced some new players but none have that kind of experience or worldliness, which would be even more important again now in the face of so many withdrawals.
It’s a tough station for Tipp to be in, especially Colm who was battling critics even within his own county before any of this stuff even happened. Now that it has, the reality of the situation can be used as a rod for his back rather than a sponge for the wounds those departures have inflicted.
Tipp will always had loads of players. We saw on Wednesday night how good their U20 team was against Limerick. A handful of those guys will be senior players but the future is irrelevant when you’re scrambling to survive in the now.
Tipp’s predicament is even more perilous considering who they’re meeting on Sunday. The green machine has looked meaner than ever but John Kiely will be cranking up the engine even more now. The squad have had a two-week break since the Waterford game while Kiely will also be keen to ensure that all the hard work is done by tomorrow evening and that Limerick don’t have to go to Ennis on Sunday week desperately looking for two points.
Beating Tipp will give Limerick so many advantages heading into the Munster final. Kiely will be able to give runs to lads in Ennis who need a game, while also resting fellas who need a break. It would also be one less game that Limerick have to be at the psychological pitch required for the machine to fully function at the level it consistently does.
They still have guys rehabbing injuries but I think the injury to Cian Lynch might be a blessing in disguise. Cian was the one guy who had a heavier winter schedule than all of their other main players, having played with NUIG in the Fitzgibbon Cup, and with the Galway college reaching the final. I thought he even looked tired in that decider but Cian has a chance to recharge the batteries and come back even fresher now for when Limerick will really need him.
There has always been huge rivalry between Limerick and Tipp so I expect the Gaelic Grounds to be rocking, irrespective of how the bookies see this match. Limerick are unbackable favourites. Everybody expects them to win well.
They will, but the nature of the Munster championship anyway is that whenever you get a chance to drive a team into the ground, especially a close rival, you absolutely take it.
When Tipp were strong, they never showed an opponent any mercy, and rightly so - because that’s the way it should be. On the other hand, talk of retribution for the days of old is often irrelevant to a dominant force. They don’t get side-tracked or caught up in settling old scores because they’re more preoccupied with writing their own history than revisiting it.
Moreover, their main opponent is never really the one in the other corner – it’s the one staring back at them in the mirror. Limerick know now that the only team that can really threaten them is themselves so they’ll be looking to absolutely max out again in all aspects of their performance levels. And the natural corollary of that approach should mean that Limerick win by a margin of at least nine or ten points
