Liam Kearns hopes for a change of fortunes in Killarney
“In the first Munster final (2003), they were too good for us. We learnt from that and came back and got to play them in the next two or three. We knew we could compete. You have got to start competing with them first, and we came up short a few times bridging the gap from four or five points down to a point or two and we drew with them, then led them seven points in Killarney in the replay.
“The Gooch tripped over his own laces that day and got a penalty. We got no breaks and went in a point up after playing all the football in the first-half and lost the game by four points in the end.”
Those close-run things, the clear fact they still rankle with Kearns, would suggest there is no better man to bring Tipperary to Killarney. It’s personal but then Tipp are not Limerick and life has moved on in the 13 years since then. And doesn’t Kearns know it.
“Technology, and the use of technology, the analysis, they are huge changes. There were no WhatsApp groups or anything like that, but I have found them very good and we use it to coach all the time and get stuff out to the lads when they are not at training. I find it very good from that point of view but I was educated in Roscommon about that.”
Working with John Evans there last year, Kearns felt the former Tipp boss was handed “a raw deal” when axed by the county. Funnily enough, he didn’t pick his brain too much before agreeing to his third inter-county position last November.
“He had worked with some of the players but not some of the younger players but he did give me a general idea of how football and hurling worked in Tipperary but you can’t beat your own experience. When I took the job I knew Colin O’Riordan was gone to Australia but I thought I had everyone else. But that wasn’t the reality.”
Then came the departures of Seamus Kennedy and Steven O’Brien to the hurlers, the retirements not to mention the flight of a trio to the US after the league. Kearns’ inheritance had disintegrated. It’s why he was cognisant that the semi-final victory over Cork had to be celebrated before it was parked ahead of this weekend. “We lost so many players and people wrote us off. We had so many problems injury-wise and any other way that from a management point of view, it wasn’t so much that we won but the performance we gave on the day was superb.”
His wife hailing from Portroe, there’s a personal investment for Kearns in the blue and gold and although his head is trained on Sunday, he’s mindful it needs to be built on in the seasons ahead.
Given half the chance, he knows Kerry will want to return them to the doldrums. “Whatever happens on Sunday, we have got to get back to a Munster final next year or the year after. It can’t be 14 years before you get back to another Munster final again because you are just not making progress if that is the case Then you can start to say you are not going away and are consistently there.
“As Darragh Ó Sé said, ‘you don’t want them getting notions’. That’s the reality. If they beat us well and we don’t come back to a Munster final for another 10 or 15 years, that is what they have done.
“That was my perspective with Limerick — the more times we got back to a Munster final, the better and the more competitive we got.”
Kearns admitted that he won’t know how Tipperary will react to the occasion on Sunday until the ball is thrown in — but he’s confident that his pre-match underdogs won’t be phased. “It’s an intimidating task to do and play Kerry in Killarney but the mantra before the Cork game was to produce our best performance and see where that takes us and we are going in with the same attitude. If we do that, I can’t ask any more of them as a manager.”
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