THE SUMMER IS just hotting up but for a few big-name contenders, early elimination has them facing an eight-month cooldown until their next competitive inter-county match.
The championship came crashing to a halt for Galway and Waterford on Sunday, while Tipperary wound down a campaign which stumbled into a dead end the previous week.
It left their managers facing questions on their futures in the immediate aftermath and speculation from the stands which will continue into the coming weeks.
Liam Cahill spoke with the most certainty about continuing into 2025.
In a dressing room below Semple Stadium’s old stand, with some members of his backroom team dotted around the nearby benches, he made his intentions crystal clear. He has one year left on his three-year term and is fully committed to serving it.
The Ballingarry man vehemently objected when asked whether he was the right man to lead his county forward.
“I have full support of the county board, 100% behind me, and what’s paramount to me and my management team is I have 100% support of them players next door. So that’s not even a question.”
Over his right shoulder, the Tipperary GAA PRO nodded his agreement.
After the protracted process to entice Cahill home, when he was the unanimous choice to succeed the short-lived Colm Bonnar reign, they would be cautious to act with anything but “calm and cool heads”, to borrow the manager’s phrase from Sunday.
Cahill’s CV of All-Ireland minor, U20, U21, and National League success, plus an All-Ireland final appearance, gave him strong grounding coming into the role. It started well but tailed off dramatically with double-digit defeats to Limerick and Cork.
A major warning light has been their dwindling goal threat. It was a central focus of Cahill’s strategy in year one. They bagged seven in their first two championship games before doubling that haul in annihilating Offaly.
They mustered just two in four games this year. Having blitzed five goals against Clare in 2023, they didn’t create a single chance at the weekend.
But Cahill fostered the conditions for that initial bounce and has developed many of the players now reaching their peak years. By all appearances, he will be given the chance to recapture those successes and begin what he termed “officially a real rebuild job in Tipperary”.
In Cahill’s former post, the standing of Davy Fitzgerald has risen with Waterford’s championship resurgence. But for a Tipp comeback or the late drama in Ennis, they would’ve picked up the extra point to extend their summer.
It was a necessary turnaround given the tough watch of his first year, going five games without a goal or a win as they operated away from their home Walsh Park home. The team now look closer to their potential and more connected with their fanbase. A solid platform to progress.
His initial two-year deal has been served although there remains the option of a further season. Both Fitzgerald and the county board have said they will review that possibility this summer.
When asked about that post-match, he replied: “Ah all I got to do now is go home and take a breather. I’m absolutely shattered.
“The one thing I’m proud of is I know that we’re right back up there in touching distance, so we are, with most of them.
“People have said stuff during the year that this was wrong or that was wrong, there was never anything wrong in the Waterford camp.
“They’ve been exceptional and we both get on great together and I’ve certainly enjoyed (it). The two years I’ve had with them has been unbelievable.”
This season left the Clareman drained and the eventual decision may be dictated by how much his batteries can be recharged in the coming months.
Of the three, Galway is the county most rife with speculation. Their boss Henry Shefflin has served a year more than Cahill and Fitzgerald and is coming off the back of their worst performance of his tenure.
After back-to-back All-Ireland semi-finals, a round-robin exit to Dublin wasn’t on the radar entering this year. He had recruited well by adding Eamon O’Shea to the coaching set-up but those enhancements haven’t been evident on the field.
There will be some added sting in the county that their elimination was masterminded for a finish by recent All-Ireland-winning Galway manager Micheál Donohoe.
After their Leinster near-miss, this season looked important to put silverware on the table. Even more so as Shefflin admitted in the aftermath they “weren’t the youngest team”.
Their All-Ireland minor triumphs, including four in a row from 2017 to ’20, have been slow to surface on the senior stage and Galway now require a rebuild.
Will Shefflin be the man to lead that transformation over the coming years?
“I don’t know, it could be the end of the road for a few of us,” he said on Sunday.
“What we said in the dressing room was that we’d take a few days and don’t make a rash decision. That’s the only logical thing.
“It’s something after three years that I was always going to reassess, and that will be no different now.
“But I think today is not the day for that. I’m absolutely heartbroken because you put so much into this and we’ve thrown everything at it.
“We tried everything but the more we seemed to try, the more it seemed to come back on us and it was very hard for us to catch a break. It was just one of those years I think.
“It will be hurt for a few days and just kind of take a break and just try and get back to normal after a few days and see how things lie at that stage.”
Last autumn, Shefflin’s term was extended to the end of 2025. The mood seems very different now.