Tipp’s Kelly determined to lead from the front

A STRANGE thing happened to Eoin Kelly in the dying minutes of Tipperary’s Munster SHC semi-final win over Clare. With the game in the balance, Kelly, owner of five All Stars and one Celtic Cross, was called ashore by manager Liam Sheedy.

A seismic occurrence? You could say that, so rare than even Eoin himself isn’t sure of the last time it happened.

“I was replaced once in 2003, again around 2005, or maybe it was 2007,” he said with uncertainty.

Admittedly he wasn’t playing well, nowhere near his best, but that wasn’t all. For several months he’s been battling a debilitating back injury that is still restricting his movements.

“It’s a common enough injury I suppose, a bulging disk,” he explains ahead of Sunday’s Munster final against Waterford. “It is a prolapsed disk, which bulges on the nerve. I’m still not out of the woods as of yet, I’m getting physio all the time. What I’m trying to do is get through the whole season with it and maybe see how things are then, devise a plan of action I can take. It’s an injury that curtails you a small bit but at this stage, this far into the season, it’s nearly a mind over matter. I’d be hopeful it will be right for games but what I’m fully focused on now is getting through the championship. We’re in a Munster final so obviously we’re gunning to win it and if we do, you’d have a Munster medal in your arse pocket, back injury or no back injury.”

Nevertheless, proud man that he is, being taken off hurt, but he is taking it on the chin.

“You would be disappointed with your performance, granted, but I’m at the age now where I have to be showing leadership, and if I’m showing disappointment in the dressing room at being taken off, that’s not good.

“The unity that’s in this group at the moment is amazing – everyone wants to win for Tipperary. Individual performances – while everyone wants to have that, it’s much more about the team performance with this panel. And I know that’s a bit of a cliché, but I can see it from what’s happening in training, and you can see it coming from Liam. You can see his honesty, he wears his heart on his sleeve and that’s rubbing off on us.

“The Munster final is one of the biggest dates in the hurling calendar, and that’s something for everyone on the panel to aspire to, even those who didn’t perform the last day – I’m sure training will be hot and heavy, and I’m sure Liam Sheedy must be rubbing his hands together because he knows that some of his most experienced players didn’t perform the last day, and they’ll be working harder.”

That’s a very mature attitude from Eoin, no hint of the Prima Donna, even with all those honours under his belt, but did he have that same attitude on the previous occasions?

“Probably not, you’d have been more selfish about it,” he admits, “But I’m 27 now, and some of the lads are 28, 29, 30 – what have we got to show for all the years hurling? Have we Munster medals, National League medals, All-Ireland medals? The answer is no, and we want that kind of success, we want it as a unit. We need to show leadership to those younger lads.”

Then again, you look at the maturity of some of those young lads, a player like Noel McGrath, for example, scorer of seven points in that win over Clare but still only 18, the same age as Eoin back in 2000, and you wonder – how much leadership do they actually need?

“A fabulous talent,” Kelly says of McGrath. “I don’t think you have to give him advice. When lads are talking he’s taking everything in, but he has performed at the highest level in club championship (with Loughmore-Castleiney), the All-Ireland semi-final, and even though they were beaten that day I think he scored 1-4 against Portumna. He also has a couple of All-Ireland minor medals but you don’t hear any of these lads going on about that – they’re hungry for more success. Give them a bit of leadership, a pat on the back when they need it – just tell them, ‘the next ball is yours.’”

Still though, he must sometimes look at the likes of Noel McGrath and wish he could still have that freedom of movement? “I do, but I think that no matter what age you are that can happen for you. Look at Dan Shanahan, he was 27 when he became Hurler of the Year, had been off the scene for a year or two but came good. Everyone on this team has the freedom to just go out and play, which is great. It’s refreshing to see what these young lads can do with a ball, the maturity they show for guys so young, and that adds to it.”

Happily for hurling in general, it’s not just in Tipperary that those young lads are now coming through; in that club All-Ireland final Noel McGrath came up against Joe Canning, already an established senior star at 20, while in their own semi-final win, Clare youngster Colin Ryan top scored with 12 points. Then you look at Dublin, Offaly, Antrim – almost every county now has their own young stars coming through.

“You’d wonder what it is, maybe the Fitzgibbon Cup means that young lads are getting big experience earlier. Colin Ryan stood up to a crucial sideline in the semi-final and put it over the bar; Noel McGrath did the very same, scoring some great points.”

There is still a long way to go in this year’s All-Ireland championship, some fantastic games in prospect, starting with this one in Thurles. So far this season Eoin Kelly has been restricted, burdened by that back problem. The irony, however, is that he has also been freed a little from the sometimes crippling responsibility he had carried in previous years, when he was practically Tipp’s sole source of scores. Plenty of others now to assume the mantle. What odds, then, that Eoin Kelly, the Tipp version, will yet have a say in where Liam MacCarthy ends up in September?

n Eoin Kelly is also one of Lucozade Sport’s GAA Ambassadors. Lucozade Sport sponsors 23 out of 32 GAA County teams, including both Munster finalists Tipperary and Waterford. Lucozade Sport is proven to help players last longer and finish stronger in the last 15 minutes, something Kelly will be counting on Sunday.