Tipperary ‘better than last year’, insists selector Ryan

LAST chance saloon for both Kilkenny and Tipperary on Sunday at Croke Park, the All-Ireland final, but were it not for the second chance offered these days to every team in the championship, the so-called back-door, one of those teams wouldn’t be there.

In the first round of the Munster championship back in May, Tipperary went to Cork with hopes high but left with heads low, beaten out the gap and back up the road to Thurles by a far more motivated and more focused team.

In the days when selector Michael Ryan was a player, plying his wares alongside manager Liam Sheedy in the Tipperary full-back line, there was no such lifeline at such an early stage of the competition. You were gone, finished for the year, six months training gone for nought after just one game.