Lessons learnt the catalyst for Tipp glory

AS the action frantically inched towards the finish in Austin Stack Park, Tralee on Wednesday night, thoughts of 12 months ago sprung to the minds of the Tipperary U21 footballers.

Last March they were undone in traumatic fashion by a late Cork goal but this time that harrowing experience proved to be instructive. Clinging onto a one-point lead in injury-time, Tipperary were intent on not shipping a levelling score to Kerry and had the knowledge of how to close out the game successfully.

“Listen, we probably have to thank Cork in a way for last year,” states captain Ciarán McDonald. “We learnt so much from that. It really motivated us to win. The cup was in our hands last year and they snatched it away from us.

“Lightning doesn’t strike twice though. I was going to make sure that no team I was captain of was going to lose like that at the end. We didn’t lose our composure this year like we did last year.”

“Last year broke my heart,” admitted attacker Sean Carey. “This time in the last few minutes, we just threw everybody at it, get every block in to kill the ball dead. Last year we let the ball into the backs and they got the goal but there was no way they were getting past the halfway line this year. I’ve been waiting three years for this and it was John Coghlan’s fourth year. It was an unbelievable feeling at the end.”

Tipperary’s achievement was all the more worthy considering the setting in which the game was played. A midweek trip to the citadel of football’s heavyweight power should exacerbate the difficulty of the task facing the underdog, but Tipperary railed against that fact.

“As John Evans said beforehand, we togged off in his lucky dressing-room here,” says McDonald. “He’s won four county championships coming out of that dressing-room. Fair play to him, he knew the grounds and he knew Kerry. We had to stick with them as they’re the best county in Ireland in football. We might have been away but we had great support, especially the lads from my own home Aherlow. They go to all the matches. They’ve been up to Down and Armagh this year following the seniors. For whatever reason I don’t know, but they support us. I can’t describe it properly, but that win means so much to a lot of people.”

There have been several players from Carey’s home club in Moyle Rovers, including Tipperary’s most celebrated player Declan Browne, who have came up short in their efforts to land a Munster U21 football medal. He appreciated the significance of what himself and clubmates Peter Acheson, Dara Dwyer and Kieran Kenrick had achieved.

“There’s plenty Moyle Rovers lads who have tried to win this before and it didn’t work out. I’d be very proud at having won a medal now and delighted for all the club members that travelled down to Tralee. I’m also delighted for all the Tipperary seniors and the lads from past U21 teams that we won.

“We did it for them as ourselves.”

Tipperary’s journey does not screech to a halt here. They can sit back now to see who emerges from the Ulster quartet challenging for honours to contest the All-Ireland semi-final on April 17. But after the seniors’ league relegation last weekend, this is a victory to savour.

“We never looked past the Munster final and the main reason for that is Tipperary have never been past a Munster final,” says McDonald. “So why would we even have thought of it? But it’s ahead of us now and we’ll look forward to it. We got relegated last week which was very disappointing. But this win is for the seniors and this win tonight showed we’re not dead yet. It’s what we’ve trained years to do. Hopefully we can go onto bigger and better things.”