Tipp expectation is no weight, insists Ronan Maher

After Tipperary beat Waterford in Thurles, manager Michael Ryan said he’d have to get lessons in taking sideline cuts from Ronan Maher, who cut over a beauty.

The Thurles Sarsfields clubman laughed when reminded of the score: “I’ve been hitting them all the time with my club so I’m very used to it, but there’s a lot of natural good forwards in Tipp, Noel McGrath and Bubbles and John McGrath.

“If you put one wide you won’t have long standing over the next one.

“But I remember walking up to the last one and Noel (McGrath) goes, ‘Do you want to hit it?’ I said, ‘Yeah I do’. I stood over it and forgot that he was after putting one over in the first half. I suppose it was a bit of bouldness from me but thankfully it paid off.”

It’s a long way from a succession of wides he hit in a league semi-final in Nowlan Park.

“I remember that game. I was wing-back on Brick (Walsh) that day but the way they set up I found myself out the field a lot more and I was getting onto a lot of ball. But yeah, I remember, I was a lot younger then and I’ve learned from that mistake. It’s helped me now to choose the right option.”

Having won an All-Ireland at centre-back, Maher thrived at midfield in the League win over Waterford.

“It’s just not to be too predictable I suppose. Last year we were very predictable. It’s giving new lads opportunities as well to play in different positions and there’s a lot of new lads coming into the panel so it’s just trying to change things up at the minute, giving everybody their chance.”

Maher, 22, dismisses the notion that Tipperary couldn’t handle the favourites tag last year. “That’s just a myth going around, we never thought of it that way.

“We lost a bit of momentum, we were going well in the league but Galway caught us on the hop, they were really strong and had an exceptional year.

“We never got going after the league final, we didn’t have that momentum going through to the championship. But Galway proved last year they were a savage team, they proved that last year.

“It knocked us back, naturally, we lost that momentum, but we just tried to recover as quick as we could to focus on Cork for the championship, but it didn’t pay off.

“We’ll have to have our heads screwed on this year, but I don’t think winning the All-Ireland the year before, that that was weighing us down.

“There’s nothing between the two teams, Galway have been savage over the last three, four, five years, they’ve been there or thereabouts and they’re the team to beat at the moment. There was only a puck of a ball between us, a fabulous score from Joe (Canning) — you’d just look back in awe at it.”

Wexford will present their own challenge on Saturday night: “They have two wins from two in the league and Davy (Fitzgerald) obviously has them primed for a big championship.

“We’re expecting a big physical battle. The way they set up that’s how they play, you have to adapt to that and confront them with something different.

“They’re similar enough to Waterford with the running off the shoulder and they’re very fit at the minute.

“We have to track their runners and so on but we’ll concentrate on ourselves, on our own tactics, rather than dwelling too much on Wexford.”