Shane McGrath: ‘I was getting letters at home, it wasn’t nice’

What should have been one of the proudest summers of Shane McGrath’s life turned into one of his most testing. Three years ago Eamon O’Shea appointed him as Tipperary senior hurling captain.

But a lack of form, consistency, and injury conspired to turn it into a season to forget. He was substituted the afternoon Tipperary lost to Limerick in the Munster SHC semi-final at the Gaelic Grounds and whipped off at half-time when Kilkenny won a raucous qualifier at Nowlan Park.

“I put too much pressure on myself and didn’t perform consistently for the year,” McGrath recalls of the trials and tribulations of that 2013 season.