Ronan Maher: Sleepless nights and tough talks have tightened Tipp group

Tipperary hurler Ronan Maher poses for a portrait during the Tipperary GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Final Media Conference at Horse and Jockey Hotel in Horse and Jockey, Tipperary. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile

A huge setback. Hard times and sleepless nights. Outside noise that’s tough on the ears. Tough conversations internally.

Ronan Maher obligingly paints the picture of Tipperary’s 2024 championship horribilis. A brief and brutal campaign that included a 15-point laceration away to Limerick and an 18-point evisceration at home to Cork.

Come the final round against Clare, long out of the running for a top three provincial spot, there was nothing left to play for but the pride that had been cut to pieces over the previous four weeks.

The tightness of the group pulled them through and held the collective threads of belief - stretched to their absolute limit - just about intact.

“Last year was a huge setback to us,” the Tipp captain begins.

“Having a tight group is everything. We try to block out everything. We block out all social media. Some of us don't go on social media, so you're not listening to that outside noise. But obviously in Tipperary, our supporters can be tough at times, and rightly so. We've always been like that, and if results aren't going your way, we will hear about it.

“And that's where your tight group comes in. The tighter we are and the harder we work through the pre-season, we know we have ourselves prepped and we focus on ourselves rather than on the outside noise. And I feel like we've got a lot tighter this year. I've seen that on the pitch too. It's impacted us hugely.”

The best friend is the one that gets the blunt honesty. Nobody spared anybody in the Tipp dressing-room. 2024 needed to be fully rinsed for 2025 to be rewarding.

“There were a lot of sleepless nights after we finished up in the (2024) championship. There were a lot of tough conversations had from player to player. The management had tough conversations with us. We were all in it together, really,” the 29-year-old continues.

“Having those conversations with the lads, it definitely helps. The closer you are as a group of players, there's nothing false then in training or nothing false in the environment. It's a healthy environment to be in. And you know when you go to the trenches and the games are tough, the lads will pull you out.” 

The All-Ireland winning defender from 2016 and ‘19, like every other Tipp hurler or sideline individual that had a recorder stuck under their chin over the past fortnight, cites the Munster Round 4 win away to Clare as their season’s shifting point. A second wind in the final 10 minutes carried them into the All-Ireland series.

“You just knew that there was something different about the group. That comes from the hard times as well and the hard pre-season. But there's a lot of these lads that are new to the panel this year. They bring great freshness. It's been brilliant so far,” he says in reference to the fact that eight players who started the recent All-Ireland semi-final didn’t start the championship-ending defeat to Cork 14 months ago.

Not since the 2020 Covid qualifier have Tipp bettered the old enemy in championship. In three of the four since - the Munster meetings of 2022, ‘24, and ‘25 - Tipp have suffered 12, 18, and 15-point tankings.

Squeezed in between the latter pair was the 3-24 to 0-23 League final pumping at the beginning of April.

We finish up by asking Maher which of these recent three were the worst. Yes, yes, we know, not the brightest note to part on.

“The worst of them? Jeez, they all weren't great now, to be honest with you.

“If you lose by a point, if you lose by ten points, I never like losing, so they were all tough ones. We're going out to try and right those wrongs now. It's a real test of the group, if we can take the learnings from those three difficult defeats and try and bring it forward to Croke Park.

“The league final was tough, and going into the Munster Championship, losing to them, going a man down, that was a difficult day for us. But I would like to think that the lads that stayed on the field, we fought on our backs for 70 minutes. It was a difficult day, but I just think that shows where we were as a group, the way we put in the fight with 14 men.”