Redser ready to followin master’s footsteps

JIMMY DOYLE was the last Thurles Sarsfields man to captain Tipperary into a Munster final, back in 1965 and how Ger O’Grady would love to see that gap bridged with a similar result on Sunday.

Fittingly, Cork were the opponents on that occasion as Tipp ran riot in a 4-11 to 0-5 win on the way to a fourth All-Ireland title in five seasons.

For O’Grady, who counts Doyle as a friend and lives just a puck of the ball away from him in the shadow of Semple Stadium, it must be a huge honour, though it isn’t one he is keen to make a fuss about.

“It’s really only (about) going up for the toss. (Brendan) Cummins and Eamonn Corcoran are the leaders of this team. I would be trying to have the craic more than anything.

“We all say our words. I’m just lucky enough to be captain.”

O’Grady has been brought up on a diet of hurling, and Munster finals, particularly those against Cork, have always been the icing on the cake.

Up to now though, his involvement in them has been peripheral.

When Tipp beat the Rebels in 1991, he was a programme seller lucky enough to be stationed in the vicinity of the action, and when the counties next met in a decider nine years later, he soaked in the atmosphere through a steward’s bib.

He finally graduated to a playing role last year, but only as a sub. This Saturday night, he says, his head will probably meet the pillow to the strains of a “Rebels, Rebels” chorus from the pubs down the road.

He is confident he will sleep soundly, all the same.

After all, had the doomsayers been proved right only last month, Tipp would be wading their way through the qualifier series and not gearing up for a Munster final.

After a league campaign that started badly and went downhill after that, nobody, not least their own fans, gave Tipp much hope of negotiating a path beyond Limerick in the opening round, never mind reaching the decider.

O’Grady points out that the league and championship are very different animals, but Tipp’s upward curve can’t be put down purely to the scent of summer in their nostrils. Can it?

“We’re doing everything right in training,” said O’Grady. “We’re doing all the drills and going hard. There’s no real explanation for it really.

“We peaked at the right time against Limerick. Limerick did their best hurling in the league and we caught them a bit stale in that game.”

The subsequent defeat of Waterford has left them battle-hardened entering a final for which O’Grady is adamant Tipp are better prepared than a year ago.

“Last year, as I said in the dressing room a few weeks ago, some of us were happy just to be in a Munster final. We got caught by the occasion with tickets and everything. This year we want to win it in front of a home crowd.

“It was a game of two halves. Cork hammered us in the first half and we came back at them in the second. We could have nicked it, which just goes to show they’re not unbeatable.”

The thought of any team being unbeatable with Eoin Kelly opposing them seems laughable considering the form of the mercurial Mullinahone man. Limerick and Waterford have been tortured by the corner forward.

Men like O’Grady and Diarmuid Fitzgerald have been the water carriers for Kelly so far – and to good effect – but the lack of scoring support remains a worry for Tipp.

“Every team in Ireland is dependant on the one forward,” said O’Grady. “There’s always one class forward on a team and he’s probably the best in Ireland at the moment. If he can keep getting the scores we’ll keep giving him the ball. It’s not all about Eoin either because you have to get the ball into him as well. It’s gone to a 20-man game at this stage.”

So if the unthinkable happens and Kelly is reduced to a bit part on Sunday, is O’Grady confident that Tipp pack enough reserve ammunition to make up for such a massive shortfall? “I’d say we would. Eoin has often been held before, against Galway a few times, and other lads got the few scores. It is fairly obvious that he’s the man getting the scores for us but we don’t mind as long as we win.”