Pádraic Maher: Tipp are in a good place - nobody is giving them a chance

Maher fears proud record is under threat but holds out hold for Premier.

26 April 2023; Pádraic Maher pictured at the launch of the Bord Gáis Energy GAA Legends Tour Series 2023. Bord Gáis Energy’s hugely popular GAA Legends Tour will return for 2023 and features a stellar line-up of Gaelic Games icons. For a full schedule of the Bord Gáis Energy GAA Legends Tour and details of how to book a place on a tour, visit crokepark.ie/legends. Booking is essential as the tours sell out quickly. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

For the proudest of Tipperary men, it gives Pádraic Maher no pleasure to admit the county’s proud record of winning an All-Ireland every decade is at risk.

Tipperary have been before. It wasn’t until 1989 that they boxed off that decade.

And while there remain five more chances, the signs are ominous: it’s six years since Tipperary won a home championship game never mind featured in Croke Park.

Three-time All-Ireland SHC winner and six-time All-Star Maher played that game against Limerick in Thurles. 

“If you said to me walking off the pitch you won’t win a home game for God knows how long, I’d have laughed at you,” says Maher, a selector with Liam Cahill two years ago.

“You have to take that as motivation but Tipp are developing. I know we’re saying the group is developing but we all expect in Tipp to win matches and we expect to be winning no matter what group comes through.

“That first (home Munster SHC) game against Limerick, everything has to be into that game and worry about the rest of what comes afterwards.

"I’d agree, you have to win those home games. We’d always feel we shouldn’t be beaten in Thurles over the years. We were a couple of times but to go through this length of time without winning (in Thurles), without winning any championship match in Munster, that has to hurt.

"I still know a lot of the players and it’s hurts them. It’s hurts the management group and definitely the supporters as well.

“That’s why I think the National League is so important – give the supporters something to cling onto. Give them a bit of energy going into that Limerick game in Thurles in April.”

In attendance are, front row from left, Michael Bond, Bríd Stack, and Ursula Jacob, back row from left, Pádraic Maher, Ronan Clarke, Eamon McGee and Ben O'Connor during the launch of TG4's award-winning Laochra Gael series at the Light House Cinema in Dublin. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Tipperary commence their season with a trip to Galway on Sunday. But keeping up the county’s All-Ireland winning trend that goes back to the 1880s, Maher concedes that right now looks like a tall task. 

“At the moment, you’re going to say it is (in doubt), aren’t you? For me, it’s just to get out of that Munster championship group. It would be a step in the right direction after the last few years and building from there.

“I know we keep saying it and probably drive people outside of Tipp but we will always have good hurlers in Tipperary. But this is more of a mental thing when it comes to hurling. Are you willing to get down and dirty with these big boys?

“I think they’re in a good position this year in that nobody is giving them a chance. People are writing them off already before a ball is pucked in the National League.

"You still have a nice bit of experience there – you have Ronan [Maher], Seamus Kennedy, Noel McGrath, Mikey Breen. There is a lot of experience there mixed in with the younger crew.

“If they come together for the Tipperary jersey and start doing that proud and maybe stop worrying about yourself and more about the team. And get back to good traditional Tipperary values there.

"I definitely think they can turn over one or two teams in Munster if their heads are right and if you do that you’re nearly out of the group. After that then, whatever happens, happens.

“If you said now Tipp will win an All-Ireland in two or three years, you’d be saying, ‘Jees, I don’t know. A lot will have to change.’

"You never know. Limerick came on the scene in 2018. Would you have said they’d win an All-Ireland in ’15 or ’16? You’d probably have said no. They have turned it around fairly quick.” 

Maher has confirmed he will managedhis club Thurles Sarsfields for a third season this year.

After a mini-stroke forced him to retire completely from hurling in 2022, he has dived into coaching but admits he took too much on in ’23 when he assisted Cahill.

“I probably took on too much. I got involved with the Thurles CBS Harty Cup team. We got to the final there. 

"We were beaten narrowly. I got involved with Liam Cahill in the backroom team and then my own club as well. I went from one extreme to the other.

“Looking back now… we got married that same year as well and I’d say she [Claire] barely seen me, I was gone the whole time. It was fine at the time.

"Again, it all goes back to gaining experience. I was pulling myself left, right and centre, probably only giving 70-80% on each one of them, whereas you should be all in on one of them.” 

* Pádraic Maher – Laochra Gael will be televised on TG4 at 9.30pm on Thursday.