Stapleton finds the fun factor

What is it about red-haired Tipperary right-half-backs and playing with a smile on your face?

For years it was Eamon Corcoran, now it’s Thomas Stapleton, and they both share that simple philosophy – whatever you’re doing enjoy it because if you don’t it can just eat you up.

That’s what happened to Stapleton first time round on the Tipperary senior hurling panel, when he was still a teenager.

“It was hard. I came on in 2007 and things didn’t go my way. I plugged away, had a few injuries and missed out on a few years. When I went off the panel (2009) I started to concentrate on my own game and things started to go well, I started to enjoy the game again and it went from there.

“When I came in first I expected too much maybe. I was disappointed when I wasn’t playing and I let it get to me. As time went on I learned from the boys around me and it helped me relax. I used to find myself very uptight on the ball, very nervous, giving off stupid passes.

“Listening to Eoin (Kelly) and the boys the advice was to hold onto the ball, hold onto it until someone comes looking for it. There’s always someone free if there’s two or three around you. Just remember that – hold it. Then just pop it out when you have a chance.”

Many of those ‘boys’ though were also from his home club, Templederry Kenyons, old friends from whom he had found himself more and more cut adrift as the years passed.

He had been involved with Tipperary county panels since school, now he was back amongst his own and they helped him rediscover his confidence and his sense of fun.

“I went back to the club and started enjoying the game again, started to get to know the lads in the club a bit better. When I was playing underage I didn’t get to train with them as much as I would like to as I was called in (to the county panel) so early. When I got going again, I got back to the club and relaxed, my confidence grew and when your confidence is high everything else will take care of itself. I feel in the middle of it now. For years I was on the outside but it’s nice to be playing and long may it continue.”

Make no mistake about it he’s a major addition to this team. He was a central member of the very talented minor team that won the All-Ireland in 2006 and it was no fluke that just a year later he was called up to senior action, scoring a point on his league debut against Dublin, then called on during the dramatic trilogy against Limerick in the Munster championship.

Even if it did keep him from his true club, being part of that group was in itself club-like. “It’s brilliant, we’re fierce close, we all know each other very well. I don’t know how many of us are around the same age but we’ve all played together up along — there are even some lads I’ve played Primary Games with! You get to know them, they are like your family. It helps, it brings a great attitude into the panel.”

It helps even more now that he has two clubmates – Gearoid and Adrian Ryan – on the Tipperary panel with him.

“Adrian broke his collarbone a few weeks before the Limerick game. It’s his first year in and he’s been very unlucky but I know he’ll come back better and stronger than ever after a break. Gearóid, we’re the same age, and have played together all the way up. I’ve always looked up to him, he’s a great player and I was delighted to see him pushing onto the senior ranks when he did and winning an All-Ireland in 2010. We have always played together and it was brilliant to see one of us pushing on. I wanted to be in there with him after that and it drive me on too to try and get back.”

In their tense quarter-final win, Tipperary in serious trouble with only 16 minutes to go and seven points behind against a rampant Limerick, it was the half-back line of himself, Paraic Maher and Conor O’Mahony that eventually turned back the Limerick tide, Paraic and himself having switched wings. Limerick didn’t get the credit they deserved in that game, he reckons, neither before nor after, but Cork – a different kettle of fish. “We all know how good Cork are. They beat us in the League semi-final (seven points).”

Yes, but were then put back in their box by Kilkenny in the final? No, he says. “If Cork met Kilkenny again now it would be a different story. This Sunday will be hell for leather — the first few minutes will be crazy altogether. The Cork forwards are fierce fast…”

Indeed, and none faster than the man Stapleton could find himself up against at some stage, Cathal Naughton. “He’s a speed merchant. If that man gets the ball in his hand he’ll take stopping — it’s our aim to stop it getting into his hand.”

Does he think about that, visualise who he’s going to be facing and how he’s going to handle him? “Not really – some people like to know beforehand who they’re marking, I wait to see who’s coming towards me when the teams take their positions. If you start worrying about opponents, you’re going to get nervous.”

No sense of that now from Thomas Stapleton, not any more. Just relax, settle in, take it as it comes.