Tipperary must break Munster boom-or-bust cycle

Tipperary’s immediate aspirations are based in survival, not success.

FALLEN IDOLS: Tipp's Mikey Breen tussles with Aaron Gillane of Limerick in the Munster SHC last year. If their post-success pattern continues, the Premier's defence of Liam MacCarthy will be as short as Clare’s was last year. Pic: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Back-to-back. The county of Tipperary is consumed by the phrase, we’re told. Apparently, it fills people’s every waking hour.

Never in the lifetime of this team of theirs has it ever been done. The likes of Cork and Limerick have managed to continue where they have left off the previous year but for Tipperary the objective has remained elusive. And hasn’t Rory McIlroy’s own version of it in Augusta last Sunday only intensified the hype around the prospect?