Cahill latest in long line of Sars stars

When Tipperary overtook Cork in the All-Ireland roll of honour in the early sixties they were backboned by the mighty men of Thurles Sarsfields, then the dominant club in the county.

For the past four years Tipperary have been back at the top in Munster, winners of three of the last four titles and are going for another Sunday against Waterford, in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The year they lost, beaten by Cork in 2010, they recovered spectacularly to beat Kilkenny in an epic All-Ireland final.

Once again they are backboned by Sars-men. Where once it was the likes of Mickey ‘Rattler’ Byrne (corner-back), Tony Wall (centre-back), Jimmy Doyle (wing-forward), Seanie McLoughlin (full-forward), now it’s Mickey Cahill (corner-back), Padraic Maher (wing-back, occasional centre-back), Pa Bourke (wing-forward) and Lar Corbett (full-forward) starring for Tipperary, a fine representation for any club in any strong county.

“A good few alright,” Cahill will allow: “There have been more, there have been less but we always seem to have a few on the team. It’s great but sure we just do our best.”

Cahill will never have the reputation of Byrne but then again was there anyone tougher than ‘Rattler?

Padraic Maher though, now there’s a man to stand with even the great Tony Wall! Lar Corbett has built his own legend, while Pa Bourke, after a stuttering start, looks set to take off.

“Pa is probably the most skilful player we have on the team, he can do anything with a ball,” says Michael.

“He can put it over the bar from play and from placed balls which is a massive boost to the team. He’s been there a long time and his confidence was probably knocked back a bit but he’s on top of it now I hope he keeps it up.”

As for the other forward flyer, when Lar Corbett announced his retirement from hurling at the start of this season it took everyone by surprise, even his own clubmates.

It was a short-lived departure, however, and a few weeks later Lar was back, not in time to line against Limerick (he was a water-carrier on the day) but came on against Cork in the semi-final and had a major impact, including the scoring-pass for the decisive goal.

A welcome return for all including Cahill. “It was a massive lift. For a while there a lot of us thought we mightn’t see him wearing the jersey again, or not for a long time anyway. Ah it was an absolutely massive boost for the county and for us especially inside.

“To have a character like Larry around the place makes an awful difference, for the atmosphere and for everything else.

“Ye saw it against Cork the last day, he’d been out for a few months but came on and made a big difference.”

That was a mighty game of hurling, a typically close Cork/Tipperary Munster championship encounter but, would say the traditionalists, a very different game to the blood and guts battles of the 50s and 60s, a much looser kind of game. Not so, says Michael.

“From where we were it didn’t seem like it was loose.

” It was fast, it was hard, it was tight, there was a certain toughness to it that wasn’t there in any of the games we’d played before it – any score that was got had to be worked for.”

It wasn’t so much that it was loose, he reckons, more that no-one was delaying on the ball. “Yeah, that’s right. There was a certain pace to that game and lucky enough we got a run of form at the right time and came out on top, barely.”