BACK IN 2010 Tipperary fell to Cork in the opening round of the Munster championship, four months later Eoin Kelly was lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup after overcoming Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final.
This year Limerick defeated Tipp by two points in their Munster championship opener, with Eamon O’Shea’s team so far responding in similar fashion to the heroics of 2010. Is history about to repeat itself?
Despite the clear comparisons, current selector Michael Ryan feels that this year’s opening round loss is quite different to the 10-point defeat in 2010.
“It was horribly like it in one sense and not like it in another,” he says.
“This year it’s a little bit different, our eyes were wide open much earlier, we knew the challenge we were facing when we played Limerick.
“It wasn’t a collapse, Limerick came and beat us with a few very good scores late on. We just didn’t take the few chances we created after the Limerick scores.”
Tipperary have recovered from their two-point defeat to Limerick with qualifier victories over Galway and Offaly, before thrashing Dublin in the quarter-final. Next up is an All-Ireland semi-final meeting with Cork, this year’s Munster champions. In 2010 Tipp defeated then-Munster champions Waterford in that year’s semi-final.
“That team in 2010 was a team whose graph was coming up. Cork deserved to beat us that day (in the Munster quarter-final), we weren’t anywhere near as focused as we should have been.
“That team, rightly our wrongly, felt they should have achieved more in 2009 and maybe that carried through into the spring of 2010.
“We had to make significant changes to the team that played in that Cork defeat to the team that played Wexford in the first qualifier, and probably more changes for the next qualifier against Offaly, and we got more of those U21 players onto the team.
“The core of our team had some very strong characters. Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett were at full tilt, we found a better mix after that defeat to Cork in 2010.”
James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Tipperary had very little time to lick their wounds after this year’s Munster championship defeat, first up in the qualifiers was Galway.
“I wouldn’t be overly hard on our guys, the consequences of an early defeat are brutal because it immediately puts you into knockout hurling, and immediately enacted Plan B but we hadn’t planned for Plan B.
“It was huge for this management team to get that first championship win against Galway, it was becoming an issue, the facts were if we didn’t we would have been the first management team to have lost all their championship games in two years. It’s not the kind of thing we set out to achieve!”
Next up is Cork, and Ryan will be hopeful that his team will draw on the hurt of their earlier championship defeat in ensuring that there is no such repeat in Croke Park on Sunday.
“These guys are very mature,” he says, “I needn’t tell you about the sacrifices they make and what it means to them.
“The reality was, and I told them, I didn’t want to see them myself in the immediate aftermath of that Limerick game, because I felt I had nothing to give, I was jaded, we were gutted.
“It’s not that we didn’t think Limerick were good enough to beat us, it’s that we knew our plans were made firmly about beating Limerick and going through. But there we were, in this kind of void until some team materialises and you have a target again. ”
“It was a difficult five weeks before the next game, and for anyone who’s knocked out in the first round it’s a horrible time -but if you feel sorry for yourself in this game you’ll be out quicker than you think.”
Their target has now materialised, but is this Tipperary team good enough to repeat the highs of 2010?
'We hadn't planned for Plan B' - Tipp selector on losing to Limerick and comparisons with 2010
BACK IN 2010 Tipperary fell to Cork in the opening round of the Munster championship, four months later Eoin Kelly was lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup after overcoming Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final.
This year Limerick defeated Tipp by two points in their Munster championship opener, with Eamon O’Shea’s team so far responding in similar fashion to the heroics of 2010. Is history about to repeat itself?
Despite the clear comparisons, current selector Michael Ryan feels that this year’s opening round loss is quite different to the 10-point defeat in 2010.
“It was horribly like it in one sense and not like it in another,” he says.
“This year it’s a little bit different, our eyes were wide open much earlier, we knew the challenge we were facing when we played Limerick.
“It wasn’t a collapse, Limerick came and beat us with a few very good scores late on. We just didn’t take the few chances we created after the Limerick scores.”
Tipperary have recovered from their two-point defeat to Limerick with qualifier victories over Galway and Offaly, before thrashing Dublin in the quarter-final. Next up is an All-Ireland semi-final meeting with Cork, this year’s Munster champions. In 2010 Tipp defeated then-Munster champions Waterford in that year’s semi-final.
“That team in 2010 was a team whose graph was coming up. Cork deserved to beat us that day (in the Munster quarter-final), we weren’t anywhere near as focused as we should have been.
“That team, rightly our wrongly, felt they should have achieved more in 2009 and maybe that carried through into the spring of 2010.
“We had to make significant changes to the team that played in that Cork defeat to the team that played Wexford in the first qualifier, and probably more changes for the next qualifier against Offaly, and we got more of those U21 players onto the team.
“The core of our team had some very strong characters. Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett were at full tilt, we found a better mix after that defeat to Cork in 2010.”
Tipperary had very little time to lick their wounds after this year’s Munster championship defeat, first up in the qualifiers was Galway.
“I wouldn’t be overly hard on our guys, the consequences of an early defeat are brutal because it immediately puts you into knockout hurling, and immediately enacted Plan B but we hadn’t planned for Plan B.
“It was huge for this management team to get that first championship win against Galway, it was becoming an issue, the facts were if we didn’t we would have been the first management team to have lost all their championship games in two years. It’s not the kind of thing we set out to achieve!”
Next up is Cork, and Ryan will be hopeful that his team will draw on the hurt of their earlier championship defeat in ensuring that there is no such repeat in Croke Park on Sunday.
“These guys are very mature,” he says, “I needn’t tell you about the sacrifices they make and what it means to them.
“The reality was, and I told them, I didn’t want to see them myself in the immediate aftermath of that Limerick game, because I felt I had nothing to give, I was jaded, we were gutted.
“It’s not that we didn’t think Limerick were good enough to beat us, it’s that we knew our plans were made firmly about beating Limerick and going through. But there we were, in this kind of void until some team materialises and you have a target again. ”
“It was a difficult five weeks before the next game, and for anyone who’s knocked out in the first round it’s a horrible time -but if you feel sorry for yourself in this game you’ll be out quicker than you think.”
Their target has now materialised, but is this Tipperary team good enough to repeat the highs of 2010?
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