McGrath: ifs and buts win you nothing
He’s also one of the best interviews around: easy-going, witty and articulate, a bonus for those of us on this side of the line. Earlier this season, however, Shane’s effervescence was well tested when he suffered a bout of the mumps, an illness that knocked him for six.
“I went in to the doctor, and because it hadn’t been seen in a long time he had to call in the other doctor just to have a look and say, ‘Is it the mumps?’ It was a big worry, but when I heard other lads were getting it I didn’t feel so bad, I thought, ‘I’m not the only freak getting this!’ Cha (Fitzpatrick, Kilkenny midfielder) got them and Conor O’Mahony (Tipperary centre-back) got them — Cha would probably say himself that he’s not a patch on the hurler he was in the last few years, because it just took so much out of him.”
Is it that bad? “Yeah, you have no energy. I love the bed, I have to say, but I was spending twice as much time in it as usual and I still felt tired. Everything you tried to do — I tried to go back to training early, tried to do a bit on my own, but it was doing nothing, doing me no good, making me worse rather than better. It made me appreciate me health — a lot of people out there would give anything to be able to get up and run around, play any match at all.
“You hear people giving out about the smallest things, maybe not having as much money as they had before, but we should be glad of what we have. It was great to get over it, get the energy levels back again.”
It took careful management on the part of Liam Sheedy and his backroom team to get both Shane and Conor back to full fitness, nurturing them through training, easing them back into matches, all the time monitoring their progress.
It took a lot of patience also, on everyone’s part, patience that has now paid off, with both players ready and willing to play their part this Sunday.
“I have to give credit to Liam and the lads,” says Shane. “They left me on in league matches I should have been taken off in, but they said that the only way I was going to improve was with game-time. I felt they were right, and my confidence is back up.”
At this point in the interview then, and surrounded by Tipperary journalists, in a Tipperary venue (Horse & Jockey, used all year by Tipperary as their media base), a dangerous suggestion to put to a Tipperary player — speaking of confidence, with Kilkenny now gone top of the honour roll in All-Ireland titles, having disputed that honour with Cork over the last decade and more, is it true to say that the Tipp are in danger of slipping out of the ‘big three’?
Given how much has been put into the underage structure in Tipp over the last few years, the emergence of another crop of young talent, isn’t there an onus now on this team to deliver an All-Ireland to Tipp?
“Absolutely, you’re dead right,” he agrees. “I know for a fact we’re a better team this year than last year. We’ve learned a lot. Everyone in the country now knows Noel McGrath, Brendan Maher, Paraic Maher, where last year they didn’t — we knew about them in Tipperary. They’re after coming in, and the lift I’m after getting, seeing the performances they give.
“They’re only 18, 19, so young, so much ahead of them; I’m looking at them and thinking — if they can do it, why can’t I? I’m still fairly young, only 24, but who knows what’s going to happen in the next four or five years? I might be meeting these lads at a funeral or whatever, looking back, and we might be saying — ‘ah, if only we’d won that match…’. Ifs and buts win nothing for you; you want to be meeting these lads at reunions of an All-Ireland winning team.
“And it’s days like Sunday that you have to put down your mark, if you want to do things like that. You have to do it when it counts, and these lads have done that at underage already, winning All-Ireland minor titles, and with their clubs. We have to look at them, we have to start putting in the same performances.
“Ye all know the training we put in at inter-county, and I think we deserve this. I think we have the confidence now. I’m sure also the supporters are sick of losing.
“I remember last year (after falling to Waterford in the All-Ireland semi-final) coming out from Thurles with Conor O’Mahony and this lad flagged us down, called us over; ‘Johnny Logan had the right song for ye,’ he says — ‘What’s Another Year!’ And we were thinking — jaysus, is he right? Is that us, what’s another year? Johnny Logan is a great singer and everything but I don’t ever want anyone to say that to me again.”
Well, there’s another Johnny Logan hit, suggested one of the Tipp journalists, Hold Me Now — will that, perhaps, be more appropriate after this weekend is over?
“We’ll see,” says Shane, “If we can win the All-Ireland, people can sing anything they like!”
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