The ins and outs: Munster hurling backroom teams take shape for 2027

Tipperary have joined Cork and Waterford in revamping their sideline teams for 2027 while some questions remain over the Limerick and Clare set-ups

Mikey Bevans will continue as Tipperary head coach under Liam Cahill but the Premier county's backroom team has changed substantially otherwise. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Further change. Further new faces and new ideals. Further departures.

The various Munster hurling front of houses may be largely untouched, but the layers underneath have had a busy revolving door in recent weeks.

Every challenger knows the folly of bringing again what proved insufficient in 2026, and so the provincial sidelines will carry revamped status next summer.

Tipp’s was the latest off-season announcement on Monday night. 2027 will be season No. 5 of Liam Cahill at the Premier helm. Unsurprisingly, his backroom team went unchanged from a stunning third season into his fourth. Unsurprisingly, his backroom team is significantly changed going from a flat fourth season into his fifth.

After a title defence that never left the runway, sideline churn was inevitable. GAA logic dictated such.

After a title defence that never left the runway, Tipp aren’t so much starting again as they are thinking afresh.

It had already been confirmed that David Herity was returning to his native Kilkenny and Henry Shefflin’s new set-up on Noreside. It was confirmed on Monday night that 2025 All-Ireland winning selectors Declan Laffan and TJ Ryan, along with strength and conditioning coach Angelo Walsh, are no longer part of the sideline make-up.

With Cahill having been given a fresh three-year term in July, this next Premier chapter of his will centre on the construction of a panel that integrates the raft of underage talent the county has produced in recent years. The manager’s radically redrawn backroom team reflects that reality.

Among the many new additions is Aidan Stakelum, who served as coach and selector in Laois’ Joe McDonagh Cup-winning campaign this year. More pertinent to the Tipp cause he now joins as coach assistant is Stakelum’s role in Thurles CBS’ annual challenging of the Harty Cup, including the all-conquering sweep of Munster and All-Ireland honours in 2025.

The Holycross-Ballycahill clubman has worked with several of the decorated youngsters now attempting to graduate from the underage ranks. That familiarity can be a useful conduit in the coming weeks, months, and years.

“[Aidan’s] record speaks for itself. He has a lot of underage success with a lot of these players that are coming through,” Cahill told Clubber TV in July.

“Michael Bevans will continue to coach the team from a leading coach perspective. Mikey and I have worked together for quite some time and we're really looking forward now to really going after this new conveyor belt of talent that's coming through and integrating it into the senior set up.” 

David Herity has departed the Tipperary backroom team to join his native Kilkenny. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Promoted from analyst to selector/coaching support, Paul O’Brien is another with deep experience of working with that bracket of players endeavouring to climb the last step into a senior inter-county dressing-room. The Crumlin clubman is a former Dublin U20 and DCU Fitzgibbon manager, the latter third-level institution representing his current posting as Head of Gaelic Games.

Given the Tipp players’ effusive praise for performance coach Cathal Sheridan in the wake of their 2025 final win over Cork, it will be interesting to watch the impact of Anne Marie Kennedy who now occupies this space. She previously worked with the Dublin footballers under Jim Gavin during their run to five consecutive All-Ireland titles.

Tipp’s fresh deck chairs, Stephen Molumphy succeeding the somewhat short-lived tenure of Peter Queally in Waterford, and Cork’s capture of Cian O’Neill, while Ronan Curran and Gerry Hussey went in the other direction, account for the headline changes in three of Munster’s five.

That just leaves the champions and the challengers who went closest to them in knockout fare this summer.

We know that John Kiely is continuing. We do not know if the other two members of Limerick’s holy trinity, Paul Kinnerk and Caroline Currid, will also go again.

No backroom team confirmation accompanied last Friday’s confirmation of season No.11 for Limerick boss Kiely.

“It’s indescribable what she brings. She just has everything sorted. She makes our life so easy,” Gearóid Hegarty said of Currid following their most recent acquisition of Liam MacCarthy.

Speaking on Live95 earlier this week, former Limerick hurler James Ryan insisted it’s Kinnerk who cannot be done without heading into 2027.

“You can talk about your sports psychology, your strength and conditioning obviously comes into it big time, your nutritionist as well, but to be fair, the heavy load and the bulk of everything is the coaching. The technical and tactical side all that kind of thing, he sees them, he's got relationships built up with all of them,” said Ryan.

Neighbours Clare are the sole Munster county yet to make any off-season announcement.

The sense is of a much-changed player set-up in the Banner next year. Shane O’Donnell has already retired. John Conlon’s delayed exit from the Croke Park field following the semi-final loss to Limerick points him in the same direction. There could be others too.

But what of Lohan’s sideline? With two years remaining on his current term, and so many of his closest lieutenants in situ for three and four years now, will he too decide that fresh faces, ideas, and ideals are required for 2027.