Mature Tippstar Maher striving for the top

BRENDAN MAHER isn’t just a young hurler mature beyond his years; Maher is a young man mature beyond his years, period.

It isn’t just because the tyro begins his second championship season for Tipperary against Cork on Sunday in Munster’s glamour opening fixture; nor it just because, in his professional life, the Borrisileigh youngster is currently on teacher-training practice in Portoe Primary School.

It’s in his entire demeanour, his composure, his intelligence, his assuredness.

You see it on the field on a regular basis.

Brendan was three years a minor with Tipperary, won two All-Irelands in that period, the second of those as captain, a measure not just of his ability even at that young age, but a measure also of the esteem in which he was held.

A gifted hurler, he is one of those rare breed capable of commanding a defence, leading the attack, or performing the link between both as an athletic, hurling midfielder.

This week – young and all as he is but again, a measure of how he is seen by Liam Sheedy and the senior Tipperary management – Brendan was one of those freed up to speak the press at the Tipperary media day in Horse & Jockey. Young Brendan didn’t bat an eyelid, didn’t put a foot wrong.

On his early introduction to senior hurling, he wasn’t at all fazed, nor indeed surprised.

“To be honest, starting off last year I was looking to get a bit of experience and get into the fold, maybe get on to the subs’ bench and get a few runs. I started hurling well and things went from there – when you get a bit of confidence, it is amazing what it will do for you. I wouldn’t say I am surprised at how fast it has happened but I’m definitely glad it has happened that quickly.”

Even the settling-in period was short. As he quickly came to terms with the fact that, for all that he was a little overawed by the big names with whom he was now sharing a dressing room, he too had earned his own bit of respect – those two All-Ireland minor titles.

“It’s gas – we’d be looking up to them and kinda going, ‘Jesus, no, this is Brendan Cummins, Declan Fanning, Eoin Kelly, Lar Corbett’ all those lads. I remember coming in the first day and I was barely able to talk to them. But then when they start talking, they’re saying, ‘Good win in the minors, you have two All-Ireland medals in your pocket’.

“So they’d be thinking the same thing, that these lads (us) are winners.

“I suppose we just help each other, it works both ways.”

Unfortunately for Brendan and for Tipp, while the mix did work last year, Tipp playing some of the best hurling of any county all year, in both the National League final (after extra-time) and in the All-Ireland final, when they came up just short, and against Kilkenny on both occasions.

Then again, Kilkenny are being spoken of as being the greatest hurling team of all time, so consolation, surely, for Brendan and for Tipp that they had brought them to the wire?

Again, that maturity comes to the fore.

“Not really, no. When you lose, it doesn’t matter whether you lose by a point or by 10 points, losing is losing and you can’t get rid of that feeling.

“People spoke about it, saying, ‘Oh it was a great game, ye were the better team on the day’.

It doesn’t mean anything when you lose. I’d rather win ugly now than lose the way we did. So definitely the hunger is up, big time, this year.”

But surely, given your age, you must feel that you’ll be back on that stage again, that your time has to come?

No, he says; having been warned by another group who were themselves youngsters when Tipp won their last All-Ireland title, back in 2001, there will be no such complacency.

“Eoin (Kelly), Brendan (Cummins) and Johnno (O’Brien), that’s the first thing they’ll say. People are coming up to us and saying, ‘Ah you’re young, you’ll win one or a few or whatever’.

“But you wouldn’t feel the time going by. It annoys me now, to be honest, to hear lads saying that. I want to win as many as I can obviously, and hopefully this year is the year to start it off.”

You might argue as to which is the more critical, but it’s on guys such as Brendan Maher that will be built not just Tipperary’s hurling future, as the Premier County goes about reestablishing itself among the elite, but the future of this country, as we too set about our own recovery.

Either way, and a credit to Brendan’s parents, to the likes of Jimmy Slattery who nurtured him in his home club, that future is in good hands.