TIPPERARY’S FOOTBALLERS ARE in far from exalted company right now.

They, London and Kilkenny are the only three teams in the entirety of the National Football Leagues with zero points thus far – indeed the Exiles have one game less played so the news does get worse.

John Evans has stepped down as Tipp boss after another bad beating, this time by 12 points to Sligo,  becoming the first managerial casualty of the year.

His resignation confirms what those outside of the All-Ireland challengers truly believe: that the league does matter.

When a provincial title and Sam Maguire are unattainable, you have to be judged by what is. For a side that was competitive in Division 2 - indeed beat Meath – in 2009, the spectre of playing in the fourth tier in 2013 was looming large.

“Going into a dressing-room after a defeat is quite difficult,” Evans said on League Sunday last night.

“But look, over the five-year period I’ve had I’ve been urging and trying to get the best out of the players. I’ve pushed hard and made big demands of them but I said to the players [on Sunday] that I was stepping down, that I take responsibility for the way we are.”

Evans’ interview rang of a man at the end of an uneasy relationship. There were suggestions that some players were unhappy with life under the Kerry native, indeed there were rumours that he had been asked to step down a week earlier when the Premier County lost to 4-10 to 0-14 at home to Cavan. For a man who had pulled the county’s football fortunes from out of the gutter, he would have felt entitled to another chance to right the ship’s course.

“(Resigning) was a kind of a relief, because I had been making big, big demands of the players. Through emigration and injuries, things just weren’t happening.”

Evidence

For evidence of that, one needs only to look at the bald facts. Tipperary’s best result of the year so far was a three-point loss to Roscommon, followed up by a 15-point beating in Wexford, and the two most recent double-digit defeats. At U-21 level, Evans’ men lost all five challenge matches they had played before exiting the Munster championship at the hands of Kerry, failing to score in the second half as the Kingdom lost two men to red cards.

In the senior Munster championship, Kerry again await. Evans said last week that he expected this to be a year of struggle, something that those on the outside might have pricked ears at because of the success at underage level: a Munster U-21 title in 2010 and an All-Ireland minor title under David Power last season.

Though Evans had attempted to dull expectations by pointing out that 10 of the 15 that started against Dublin in the minor final were still at that age grade this
year, not to mention all of the subs.

Success was not necessarily going to be incremental for Evans, but such a dramatic fall made his situation untenable. Last year Tipperary were second last in Division 3 but they won three of seven games and their points differential was just -2. Bottom place and -37 points in NHL3 2012 has been a marked slump.

“I’m in my fifth year and in my previous four years we’ve had absolutely  wonderful, wonderful success,” Evans added. “But if you come off the standards you’ve set then, look, somebody else can take those standards. They certainly weren’t good enough for me, good enough for the team. And I have nothing but praise for the team, for the county board and the football board.

“I think it was time to shake hands and let’s move in our own direction rather than going into a non-amicable situation. Look, I’ve had a wonderful time, absolutely wonderful people and great players there.

“Tipperary just cannot do with emigration and being without fve or six players. They don’t have that pool of talent.”

Taking stick: Has Kilkenny’s air of invincibility been blown away?

How the south was won: Kerry go the long way round to beat Rebels