Toomevara focused on Shamrocks, says Herbert

A WEEK OFF — that’s the reward being granted the Toomevara players by manager Pat Herbert after their late late Munster final heroics on Sunday.

“There’s a cracker of a game waiting for us on the 11th of February, probably in Portlaoise, in the All-Ireland semi-final against Ballyhale Shamrocks. That’s our new focus. The guys are on a bit of a break this week but we come back next week, intend maintaining our training programme right through the festive season. The whole focus now is on Ballyhale Shamrocks. I’ll have a look at the tapes I have of their last two games but they destroyed Birr, destroyed Rathnure (Leinster final and semi-final respectively), had an impressive win in their own county final too. They’re a balanced side, dangerous forwards, and of course they have the hurler-of-the-year and the young hurler-of-the-year in Henry Shefflin and ‘Cha’ Fitzpatrick. They have to be respected.”

All teams at this level have to be accorded respect but the Kilkenny champions are indeed impressive and will probably be favourites. “I’d say so,” agrees Pat, “But it’s like yesterday, you never know which way a game is going to go. Favourites or not, it means nothing — a bit of luck, a decision here or there, conditions on the day, you just don’t know. We’re aiming to reach the All-Ireland final for the first time since 1993/94.”

The ‘decision here or there’ referred to was the major talking-points after Sunday’s win, regarding two 65 decisions, both of which went with the Tipp champions.

But Herbert wasn’t convinced of any injustice. “I haven’t had a chance to study the two controversial 65s at the end of the game yet, but it’s immaterial at this stage. We had a few calls given against us that we had major problems with, in the first half especially.

“What goes around comes around, over the 60 minutes. They had 12 wides in the first-half, which cost them, but we didn’t do enough in that half either and should have had two goals.”

Herbert singled out the Michael Bevans for praise. “Mikey is one of the best club players in Ireland. The amount of work he gets through in an hour is unreal, especially for a player not on any county panel. In all our matches he has been consistently good.”

There were others to whom Pat Herbert was anxious to pay tribute, guys who didn’t figure at all this week. “All year I’ve been coming down from Dublin (he’s an army officer based in the city), they’re waiting in anticipation, wondering who’s going to be in, who’s going to be left out this week. It’s been very tough. Barry Dunne lost out this time to David Young, David Kennedy the same, was on the last day against Mount Sion, I had to tell him on Saturday that he was out. His attitude is typical of this team when I gave him the news, all he said was, ‘Look Pat, as long as we win on Sunday, that’s all that matters.’ When you have an attitude as positive as that, it’s a huge boost. Without the squad we wouldn’t be where we are today.”