Tipp’s topple not tomorrow

SOME day, Tipperary hurlers will have another afternoon to forget.

Shane McGrath will be inexplicably listless; Paul Curran will slip and lose hold of the leash; Pádraic Maher will come down from the clouds outfetched; Lar, God forbid, will clutch the back of a leg; Seamus Callinan will be reminded, by his own people, to put two hands on the hurley; of Bonner, it will be asked, what good is all the rooting if you can’t throw the odd one over the bar?

And so on and so forth, and whenever the off day comes, the fault lines in the champions will have been obvious to the sages all along, particularly those closest to home.

Because arrogant as some perceive the Tipp support base to be in times of plenty; like a good watchdog, there is always one ear cocked for trouble. In recent decades, too many good Tipp teams have toppled from positions of strength for it to be any other way.

Could the latest flop come tomorrow? Of course it could and a disappointingly straightforward championship summer probably needs that to happen. But Declan Ryan has been knocking around on too many of the days when Tipp bubbles burst not to have warned his young charges of the dangers. The bloodletting can wait another day.