The Eamon O'Shea Interview: Life won’t be bland in the shadows

You could call it a failure, Eamon O’Shea’s time as manager of Tipperary, if you consider the outcome the only important part of any process. He wouldn’t see it like that, though he wishes he could have done just a little bit more.

‘It wasn’t long before Eamon O’Shea was sprinkling magic dust over us. I found him a little eccentric at first, but once you started to understand what he was trying to get you to do, how he wanted to open your mind to creative possibilities in how you played, you were soon a different and better player. Bland wasn’t good enough. If you’re bland, you might as well be a lemming running off a cliff with the rest of them. Socially conditioned to follow the pack rather than stand out from the crowd.’

- Brendan Cummins, Standing My Ground: The Autobiography