Tipperary selector Michael Ryan believes desire will propel his county on Sunday, writes IAN O'RIORDAN
IF MOTIVATION is measured by what you’ve lost and not what you’ve won, by what you need and not what you want, Tipperary have possibly more to play for in Croke Park on Sunday. The chance to win five All-Irelands in-a-row will certainly motivate Kilkenny, but Tipperary view Sunday’s final as the big chance for themselves – to bridge the nine-year gap since their last title, plus make amends for last year’s narrow defeat.
The Tipperary players have made this clear all week, that last year’s defeat still hurts. Their regret can’t be underestimated. But the lure of redemption has been even clearer from the Tipperary management. Selector Michael Ryan, who both won (1991) and lost (1997) All-Ireland hurling finals during his playing days, has been preaching the laws of opportunity, not just in relation to last year’s narrow defeat to Kilkenny, but also the heavy defeat to Cork in their opening round of the Munster championship.
“I would say there is, absolutely, a greater urgency to win this year,” says Ryan. “That’s a natural expectation. Throughout the county, there would have been a sense of great pride in the performance levels last year. That’s fine when you’re building a team and building momentum. But the value of this Tipperary team went up considerably after last year, and ultimately the test is can you win an All-Ireland? Can you reach the pinnacle? There’s no joy in being number two.
“What happened against Cork the first day out was very humbling. We had no answers for them. But in fairness to this bunch, once we got a chance to regroup, and we had a five-week break. A lot of soul searching can go on in five weeks.”
Getting it wrong is one thing, knowing what went wrong is another. Tipperary haven’t quite figured out exactly what went wrong against Cork, but they can trace it back to an unconvincing league campaign: “I think the earlier part of our season wasn’t good, to be fair. We mixed some good and some bad in the league. We set out to try to win every competition we entered this year and we didn’t do well in the league. It was a good day and then a bad day. We got no run of consistency.
“Our form hadn’t been great coming in against Cork and maybe we were relying too much on the performance we gave last September being enough to buy us through an early round in May. Clearly it wasn’t.”
Ryan’s close relationship with Liam Sheedy goes back to their playing days. Now in their third year in management, they’ve been learning all the time, he says, yet Ryan also reckons the current squad are the best vintage yet – better again than 2009.
“Certainly, I believe we are better on last year. I don’t tend to focus too much on what the opposition do. For us we are going out to improve by concentrating our efforts on our squad because that’s all we can control. And I also believe that we have a more even panel. We certainly have more headaches when we sit down to pick a panel and that’s the best barometer of where we are.
“But I know our performance against Waterford won’t beat Kilkenny, simple as that. You’re always looking for a better performance and we’re aware that we’ll need a better performance this year to try to close it out. Let’s be honest, we can’t deny what Kilkenny have achieved, but it’s nothing to do with us. We have a championship match on Sunday and we have to do what we can to win it.
“We’re confident in our own ability. We have five under-21s on this team at the moment and what you get with those guys is belief. They haven’t suffered a whole pile in their hurling careers just yet. These guys are winners. They believe they are winners and you can’t buy that.”
Michael Ryan
Tipperary selector(third year)
Honours – as selector:2 Munster SHC (2008, 2009)
As player:All-Ireland SHC (1991); Munster SHC (1991); 2 NHL titles (1994, 1999); All-Ireland under-21 (1989); 2 Munster Under-21 (1989, 1990); Munster MHC (1987); 24 senior championship appearances for Tipperary
