Maher: Tipp can lay down a marker

In eight competitive meetings since the glory of the All-Ireland final in 2010, Tipperary have beaten Kilkenny just once, in round two of last year’s league in Thurles (2-17 to 1-19).

Included in those losses were two high-profile high-octane meetings in Nowlan Park last year, the first in the Allianz League final (2-17 to 0-20), the second a couple of months later but this time in an even more crucial game, a knockout All-Ireland qualifier, Tipperary again coming up short (0-20 to 1-14).

Sunday offers Tipperary another opportunity, again a league final, albeit this time in their home patch. The Tipp management and players may be making all the usual sounds about that recent poor record and that what happened before has no bearing on what happens on Sunday. But it does have a bearing, and Tipp captain Brendan Maher — not a one for spouting platitudes — accepts it as such.

“Kilkenny are the only team to have knocked us out of the championship since I started hurling in 2009. So that’s definitely something that you want to lay down a marker on. Kilkenny have had the upper hand on us so we want to go out and give a performance, and we’re confident enough that if we can get the performance we want, then it should go a long way to winning the game.”

He continued: “No matter who you’re playing, you want to beat every team. If you get hung up on those things it could maybe affect your performance, you might go out and be a bit too edgy, it might grab your mind a bit. So we’re approaching every game as it comes, just trying to play the way we know as much as possible. Any team that has beaten you so often, nine out of 10 times (it’s actually seven out of eight), you owe them.”

Tipperary’s latest loss was again in Nowlan Park, back in February, this one a rip-roaring contest with the Cats coming from 10 points behind down to win by six, 5-20 to 5-14.

This is now a much-changed Tipperary side in both personnel and positioning, however, and possibly the most significant of those changes is the switch of Maher to centre-back with namesake Padraic Maher behind him at full-back. From being a team heavily leaking goals (they went on to concede four against Clare in the next round, then three against Galway), Tipp have become a much tighter unit, with Maher calling the shots at number six.

“I’m happy to be able to do a job; wherever you’re placed, you just have to think of the team and try and do your bit, whether that means getting on the ball every second time it comes down or not getting on it at all.”

There’s more to it than that, though. In the modern game, teams like All-Ireland champions Clare have made an art-form of pulling the centre-back out of position and opening a direct route to goal, but of course that’s always been a hurling tactic. Maher is a fine hurler, with the skills and physical attributes demanded of a centre-back, but crucially he is a consummate reader of the game and won’t be easily suckered out of position. “At centre-back — like in any other central position or a sweeper’s role — you can see almost everything that’s going on in the game, apart from (behind you) in the full-back line.

“So as long as the full-back line is telling me what’s going on, I can read it as best I can.”

New as he is to the role on this team, it’s something Maher has been doing with his club since his youth in Borrisoleigh. Now he has seized that opportunity with Tipperary. “They (management) leave it to ourselves, there’s a lot of responsibility left to the players, we can adjust and adapt to whatever way it is, and they given us the freedom to make calls, whether you pick up this lad or go free, things like that. They’re there to facilitate us, to prepare us for the game, once you cross the white line, it’s down to us.”