Seizing the day is Ryan mantra

FOR likely starters Padraic Maher, Brendan Maher (not related, by the way) and Noel McGrath, and for all the other half-dozen or so U21s on the Tipperary panel, facing Kilkenny in this Sunday’s All-Ireland senior hurling final could be a daunting prospect.

If the experience of selector Michael Ryan is anything to go by, however – experience he is certain to pass on to the current crop of Tipp tyros – that’s unlikely to be the case.

Back in 1991, the last time Tipp and Kilkenny met in an All-Ireland final, Ryan was just out of his teens, a colt who had made his championship debut earlier that season against Limerick.! “1991 is a long time ago now and I was only a youngster. I’d say at the time the significance of playing Kilkenny, and of beating them (Tipperary won by four points, 1-16 to 0-15, courtesy of a very fortuitous Michael Cleary goal, from a mis-hit free), went over my head.