Ryan is ready to give his all for cause

AS the hour of decision looms in Limerick senior hurling, Garryspillane’s TJ Ryan doesn’t mean to be taken literally when he explains how important a win would be to himself, and to his club.

But he does want you to understand. “I would kill for this, I would,” he says softly. “It’s massively important. For guys like myself, there are two huge medals to be won, senior county with your club, senior All-Ireland with your county. I have neither. I have Munster medals, Railway Cup, National League, all with Limerick. I have South medals with the club, Senior B, two intermediates won, 1990 and 1996, but the two major ones are still missing. I’ve lost All-Ireland finals with Limerick (1994 and 1996) and lost the only senior county final we ever played in, in 1997. I was captain and we didn’t perform at all, though Patrickswell were a great team at that time, exceptional. We had come up from intermediate, probably didn’t believe in ourselves, but this is another opportunity, for me and for the club.”

Nothing but hard luck stories to date then, for the Limerick captain. “That’s the problem we have at inter-county level at the moment, trying to get the breaks, but that’s the problem we’ve always had, and the same problem we’ve had at club level. We’ve had so many hard luck stories, beaten narrowly in quarter-finals, semi-finals, even the final. In 1997 we could have done better, last year, same sad story. Lost every championship game, got relegated to the B division, but every game we played, we could have won. The thing is, you have to create those breaks for yourself, that’s the only way.”

Probably the biggest step Garryspillane and TJ took towards doing just that was to approach former Clare selector Tony Considine to take over the team. They knew they had the potential to do better, and wins in last year’s Limerick U-21 A championship and the All-Ireland 7’s competition in Dublin confirmed that belief. What was needed was someone to drive them on to the next level.

“He came to our dinner-dance last year, to make the presentations for the U-21 A and the All-Ireland 7’s, made a super speech. Myself and Frankie (Carroll) were talking to him afterwards, and we sensed that he could make a difference. We hadn’t anyone at the time, but we felt he was just the man to bring things on for us.”

He’s done that. Under Considine’s expert tutelage, Garryspillane have reversed their misfortunes of last year, been unbeaten in this year’s championship, and won the Senior B title.

“He’s a tough man,” says TJ. He’s very professional, very thorough. We’ve found him very good in terms of discipline, getting the lads organised, very good in the dressing-room on the day of a match, very good on the sideline. But he’s been there, done that, been to All-Ireland finals, semi-finals, Munster championship games. A lot of those games were tight, so he had that experience. A lot of our games this year have been tight, we’ve had two draws but won the replays. That’s not an accident. He’s very cool on the sideline, analyses a game very quickly.

“A lot of people are very good in hindsight, but even at half-time in the last game, for example, things weren’t looking too good for us, a man down, under pressure, to face the wind, but he made the difference. Hopefully that will continue.”

Founded in 1952, Garryspillane are on the point of bringing out their 50-year history. A couple of years overdue, the delay, according to club secretary Corona Ryan (daughter of James Peter, known Munster-wide as Jap, club chairman for 40 years and probably Garryspillane’s most famous son), has nothing to do with this year’s heroics, everything to do with checking facts, making sure that what goes in is correct, but also - and more importantly - that no-one who deserves mention is omitted. Final chapter will be written this weekend. Despite the odds it could well be a happy ending.