IN 2012 IT proved beyond them and it was the same in 2014.
Both seasons saw the Tipperary footballers advance to the All-Ireland senior football last 12 stage but that hurdle was too high to jump over.
Down administered the punishment in Mullingar in 2012 and Galway sent them packing in Tullamore in 2014.
They fell short in Round 3 last summer against Tyrone, that familiar July feeling of disillusionment enveloping their squad as another campaign ground to a halt.
How has 2016 swerved on a different course? For attacker Conor Sweeney, it all stems from that groundbreaking win over Cork on 12 June, the consequences of which reached further than shaking up the Munster football landscape.
“Getting to the provincial final, we’re not playing as many games in the qualifiers. The last few years, we’ve been playing three or four games in the qualifiers and by the time we get to the last 12, the body is just not right.
“You’ve taken serious hits. It just takes the pressure off when you get to a provincial final.
“I think the last few minutes against Derry (in Round 4), their legs were gone because they’d played a couple of tough games beforehand. That was definitely a factor.
“I think we took great confidence from the Cork match. The squad and the panel took a lot of hits throughout the start of the year. Once we beat Cork, every lad got serious confidence.”
Tipperary had three weeks to pick themselves up after being swatted aside by Kerry. The time frame was needed after being rocked by that defeat.
“The Munster final day was a tough enough day for us all,” reflects Sweeney.
“Totally under performed and as a result we got beat by 10 points. That’s the reality of it that if you don’t show up against the top sides, they’ll steam roll you.
“We really wanted to rectify it again the next day because we’re after beating a good Cork side and we wanted to show it wasn’t a flash in the pan.”
The win over Galway was a career high performance for the Tipperary players. They thrived on the senior stage, in the Croke Park setting and with an All-Ireland semi-final prize at stake.
Sweeney plundered 2-2 and his display reflected the attacking ethos that Tipperary adopted.
“We’re confident in our own ability. We’ve been confident for the last few years, it’s just this year we’re after getting exposure.
“Our panel isn’t big, we use about 17 players for the majority of our games. I think we’re just really close, you saw the last day, our work rate and our intensity was sky high the last day. It was definitely a lot better than Galway’s.”
The last four stage is a reward for years of toil. Sweeney made his debut for the Tipperary senior side in the low-key environs of a McGrath Cup game in 2010 against UL.
He made his championship debut that June against Laois but it in his seventh summer, that he has burst to prominence as a Tipperary senior footballer.
“Probably a lot of years before this year it hasn’t been easy, like. But I think you just have to find something, there’s something in the back of your head every year saying, ‘keep going’.
“Every pre-season you have to believe it’ll happen for you at some stage and that we’ll get the breakthrough. Thankfully we’ve done it a small bit this year, we’ve made a bit of a breakthrough.
“But I think there’s going to be massive pressure on us now next year to back it up and to prove it’s not a flash in the pan.”
“I think we’re after losing three or four quality players. So are we a better team? Probably not than this time last year because we had better players probably last year.
“I don’t know what it is. I think we’ve just got so close and I think it’s a never say die attitude really. Down through the years, when Derry got that late goal, if that was a previous team we would have lost that game.
“And we’d have lost the Cork game as well. But we didn’t.”
There’ll be pressure to step up next Sunday as well. Mayo are seasoned campaigners, the first Connacht side to be contesting a sixth successive All-Ireland senior football semi-final.
Trying to perform in high-pressure circumstances is their goal now.
“That’s down to yourself as a person,” says Sweeney.
“On a personal level I think you have to start visualising now playing there, getting on the ball. You have to see yourself putting the ball over the bar or else you’re not going to do it.
“We’re massive underdogs which is fair enough considering who we’re playing. We’ve been watching them the last few years, they’re a top four side.
“They’re competing in Connacht and in the All-Ireland series year in, year out. The task at hand is massive but look we’re looking forward to it.”
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