Eamon O’Shea has special bond with Tipperary players, says Bergin

It’s just as well Eamon O’Shea is on the verge of staying on as Tipperary manager for a third season.

Kieran Bergin can’t countenance the camp without his presence. “It would be a backwards step next year,” he says.

Bergin doesn’t see too many issues. “I think, talking to the players, he is just trying to iron out a few issues that he had maybe with the county board last year, maybe just to get that extra 2% out of the players.”

What the players and O’Shea have is not something that can be easily replicated, insists Bergin. “I can’t see anyone replacing him. Someone else coming in would find it very hard to get the respect of the players. It’s hard to explain the bond that’s there. He’s a great manager, very intelligent and he’s as honest as the day is long. All the players are mad about him.”

O’Shea is believed to be keen for the team to take in a warm weather training camp next year, sacrificing part of the team holiday in the coming months. No problem there, says Bergin. Anything to grow the spirit in the camp. The belief that wasn’t there at the start of the season is present now. “Our form at the start of the year was very poor. We struggled immensely during the league and Eamon had to go out and answer the critics the whole time. I think after the Galway game, we hit rock bottom. Eamon must have been close to tears having to face the media, but he never once came in and showed any negativity, and that positivity he has shown eventually filtered down.”

Looking back, Bergin felt Tipperary could have helped their situation by allowing club games to go ahead the week after last month’s drawn final with Kilkenny.

“We probably should have let off the round of club games after the replay. The three weeks between games, I think if we let off the club games... hindsight is a great thing, but I think that would have taken it off lads’ minds for another week. Three weeks is a long time for lads thinking, and the hype builds up and you’re kind of saying ‘this will be the finish of it now’, and the social aspect takes over.”

Since coming on board last year, Bergin has faced Kilkenny seven times and is yet to win. But it’s Limerick who he wants to avoid in next year’s Munster championship, having lost to them in the province the last two seasons. Tipperary face the winners of Clare and Limerick next June.

“I sincerely hope it is Clare, to be honest. Whatever it is about Limerick, the last couple of years but they’ve been pinching it. I don’t know what it is. I know in 2013 we weren’t mentally right. I remember speaking to players and I knew their attitude was wrong. This year again, they pinched it but it was probably my fault we got beaten. Apart from playing horribly, I got caught — we were three points up and I ran up the field and I went to fist pump after I won a free 30 yards out, and the hurley flew out of my hand and hit Richie McCarthy in the private area. It went from a free-in that would have put us four points clear to a throw-in. The ball went up the field and they got the goal shortly afterwards. Those are the small little momentum shifts. I put my hand up in the dressing room afterwards and said ‘I take responsibility for that’.”