Kelly looks to put spring frustrations behind him

SPRING was unkind to Eoin Kelly, and it had nothing to do with Tipperary’s patchy league performances. The star forward’s list of injuries and niggles ran in parallel with the early season, and sometimes the two intersected. Leaning against a wall in Thurles, he runs through the list.

“I had two dead legs during the league, one of them was very bad, and I probably shouldn’t have played against Waterford in the quarter-final.

“But I hate missing games. That’s why you do your training.”

Then Kelly got a lower back complaint; that took another few days to get over. As soon as he’d recovered he lined out against Offaly in a challenge.

The result? A vivid scar across the back of his hand. “Yeah, I got a nice slap and I had to have a few stitches. I played a club game the weekend after that — well, I togged out, but I was probably stupid to do it. I couldn’t get a full grip on the hurley, I couldn’t take the frees — all I could do was try to win the ball and lay it off to another fella or win a couple of frees. It’s probably not an ideal way to prepare for the championship.”

Even a wizard needs practice. Kelly’s magic touch didn’t desert him when he was out of action, but he still needed to keep his eye in.

“For hurling you need your touch, you need the hurley in your hand — it’s like snooker or whatever. It’s been disappointing to have so many injuries but on the other hand I was probably better off getting them then, at the start of the year, rather than in the middle of the season.

“I’ve never really missed club or intercounty championship games since I was young and I don’t want to start now. Those are the joys of sport, though, one man’s injury could be another man’s good fortune, and Babs can have a look at another few lads. But I’ll be fighting fit for Limerick. I’m looking forward to it.”

Tipperary have been expanding their own horizons as well, and the pickings have been rich. Winning an All-Ireland minor title last September gave the county a boost, and they came close to the U21 crown also.

“We’re in a positive enough frame of mind because of the minor All-Ireland last year, while the U21s were 30 seconds away from an All-Ireland themselves. There’s 60 players between those two squads.

“Obviously you’re not going to try out all 60 lads that are there in the league, but we’ve tried eight or nine of them. If you can get four or five onto the panel or the team that’s enough for any one year, and I’m sure two or three of them will see the championship. That’s a good sign for the year ahead.”

They’ll need it. Limerick and Tipperary’s clash last year was largely decided by Kelly’s brilliance. People were surprised Damien Reale didn’t pick Kelly up, particularly in view of the Tipp man’s statistics at the final whistle: 15 shots, 14 points, one wide.

“I probably don’t know where I’ll be playing myself! I was at centre-forward in a couple of league games, I could be full-forward, I could be corner-forward . . . for a forward it’s different. It’s up to the defender to mark you. Damien (Reale) is one of the best corner-backs around, and has been for the last four or five championship campaigns. I probably expected to be marking him last year, if truth be told, but that’s the way it went.

“I remember last year that I started in the corner, went to full-forward and then ended up at centre-forward, because we were probably trying to hang on to our lead at that stage. You’ve to expect that anything is going to happen in a championship match.”

Warming to his theme, he focuses on the recent past to show the closeness of the rivalry.

“You look at Limerick’s league run last year, beaten in the final by Kilkenny, and that was going to have them coming in as favourites; we’d had a poor enough league run. This year Limerick haven’t done so well. Our league form has been no different to last year, though we’d be happy enough with the way the game finished against Waterford, given all the injuries we had.

“The way I see it, when we play Limerick there’ll be a point or two between us — and it’d be exactly the same if we played them in the All-Ireland final in September. The facts are there — since 2001, the majority of their hurlers would have crossed swords with us at U21 level.

“In 2001 we had a great Munster final with them at that level, and they won by a point. In 2002 there were two drawn games here and they won in extra time. In 2004 we drew with them and won the replay. There’s only been a puck of the ball in it.”

Kelly looks over his shoulder at the pitch in Semple Stadium.

“You’re training all year for the championship, and thank God now it’s coming around.” Amen to that.