No joking matter as Corbett ready to stand up and fight
So it was that this particular correspondent came a bit of a cropper this week at the Tipperary media day in advance of Sunday’s Munster senior hurling final against Waterford. “There are those,” went the lead-in question, “Who feel that one of the reasons for the stuttering performances recently by Tipperary is that they don’t have a Declan Ryan up front,” a reference to the former bustling centre-forward from Clonoulty-Rossmore. “So what are you suggesting,” said Corbett, dead-pan, “That one of us should change our name?” Ouch!
In fairness to Corbett he went on to spare my blushes by actually addressing the issue. Ryan wasn’t the most stylish player Tipperary ever produced but in the way he put himself about, spoiled the opposition centre-back/full-back, broke ball, held it up, he was extremely effective. “I suppose it’s a fair point,” Corbett conceded, “But the game has changed too. Look at the midfield every county has now – it’s usually two light fellas. You don’t have the likes of Andy Comerford from years ago, it’s Cha Fitzpatrick or Shane McGrath. I don’t know if I’d agree with you – we have a good panel of players at the moment. Do we need a Declan Ryan-type? I don’t know. I think the forwards as a whole are playing okay at the moment and there are players pushing them for positions.”
There is that criticism, however, that at vital times in their last three big games – Clare and Cork in the Munster championship, Kilkenny in the league final – the Tipp attack has practically disappeared at a vital time.
Declan Ryan type, with his battling mentality, wouldn’t allow that to happen, surely? And if it happens again this week, against what is potentially a massively potent Waterford attack, it could be curtains for Tipperary, back-door territory. “We are going to be very conscious of that. We don’t like to see it but I suppose you have to give credit to Cork and Clare too, they came back at us. Any time we have played those teams in championship hurling we have never got much out of them. I think you have to take the positives out of it as well – we won.”
Well yes, they won the championship matches, but from a position where they were ahead by eight points a couple of minutes into the second half against Kilkenny in the league final, they went on to lose. Mind you, it was still seen by most supporters in Tipperary as a moral victory, given that just a few weeks before that Kilkenny had absolutely trounced Tipperary.
“I think it was very important for the Tipperary players, supporters, to see how far we were behind,” says Corbett, “To see where we were in relation to Kilkenny. The league loss was very demoralising; that was the bottom of the barrel. Anything after that had to be a positive, so we decided to drive on from there.
“It was important then to do well against the rest of the teams in the league, and get another crack at Kilkenny. We did lose the league final but it gave us confidence.”
There’s a lot of pride in Tipperary hurling, always was, but that pride has been under pressure again in recent years. The late 80s, with Nickey English and company, was supposed to represent the end of what was the bleakest period in Tipperary hurling history, All-Ireland titles won in 1989 and 1991; it was another 10 years again, before Tipp would climb the Hogan Stand steps, September 2001, and Corbett was part of that team.
Again, and especially given the age profile of the side, with only Declan Ryan in his 30s, all the others with still many years of hurling left, it should have signalled the beginning of another golden era. It didn’t, and since then Tipperary have yet to even make it back to Croke Park on All-Ireland final day.
“Without a doubt, you’re going to look back with regret; from my own point of view there are a lot of years that went missing, but I’m not going to dwell on that. You look at the young fellas there now, going for their second Munster (Tipp are reigning champions) – they already have minor All-Irelands, they’re the future.”
