Tipp’s win breathes new life into hurling

Tipperary have added the U21 to the senior All-Ireland so the future is bright for them. They’ve also given the rest of us a wake-up call, writes JOE’s hurling columnist Sean Og O hAilpin.

 

Having eight or nine players who either played in the senior final last week or were part of the panel was definitely more of a help than a hindrance to the Tipperary U21s. Some of those guys – Padraic Maher, Brendan Maher, Noel McGrath – played key roles against Kilkenny, and their confidence will have sky-rocketed since that game. After winning an All-Ireland, your state of mind, your confidence, is at an all-time high. Those lads will have felt they could walk on water all week.

So it was no real surprise that the U21 final against Galway turned out to be a non-event. Tipp won by 25 points. It was over after 15 minutes. I have some sympathy for Galway with the venue – the Tipp U21s playing an All-Ireland final at Semple Stadium, with so many lads who were part of the senior final, six days after winning the senior, there was always going to be a massive crowd out in support.

However, there was no point protesting about it. The venue wasn’t decided inside the last two weeks. It was decided six months ago. In any case, I don’t think it mattered where the game was. If it was in Salthill, there was still only going to be one winner. This is a top class Tipperary team. There are lots of lads who now have All-Ireland senior medals. Lots of lads who could be fixtures in the Tipp senior team for years to come. From what I hear, this wasn’t a vintage Galway U21 side. So all things considered, the result wasn’t much of a surprise.

The U21s is a strange competition. There are some people who want to see it abolished, which I wouldn’t agree with. The way it’s run, though, you can have issues if a county’s senior and U21 team are both going strong in the championship at the same time. That happened Tipp this year, and it could have had a disruptive or unsettling effect. Fair play to them, they handled it well and they’ve won both competitions, so that augurs well for the future of Tipperary hurling.

However, and I hinted at this last week, the future is bright for Tipperary but there’s no guarantee how things will pan out. We’re not future tellers. They could have injuries, they could have lads who suffer a loss of form, they might be knocked out of the championship next year and you don’t know how they’ll react to that. Everything’s in place for them but you just don’t know how things will go.

Some people have said Tipperary and Kilkenny are now way out in front of everyone else. That’s not the way I see it.

Tipp and Kilkenny have been producing at minor and U21 level while ourselves in Cork haven’t had the same success over the last few years. But there isn’t a great deal in it. In the Munster U21 Championship this year, Cork were beating Tipp by a goal with a minute left. Tipp got a very dubious 21-yard free, I think it was Seamus Hennessy took it and rattled the net, and they went on and won in extra-time. The Cork minors got to the All-Ireland final in 2007, so it’s not as if they’ve been left behind. They’re competing, and they just need everything to go right some year and get over the line, and then you’ll see more lads coming through to make a mark on the senior team. If you don’t come into the senior panel with silverware, it can be hard to make the step-up, because mentally you might not have the strength and confidence that a big win can give you.

But there’s no doubt that there are things wrong in Cork at underage level. That’s for another day. We won’t solve that in one or two columns.

Cork’s old foes

Somebody asked me, after the All-Ireland final last week, whether it was worse for a Corkman to watch Tipp or Kilkenny winning. It’s hard for us whichever it is, it doesn’t matter much either way. In Cork we take our hurling seriously. We like to think of ourselves as the aristocrats of the game. When any team, whether it’s Tipp or Kilkenny or someone else, knocks us off the podium it’s hard to take. But 31 counties were shouting against Kilkenny last week and Cork people were among them. It’s not that we’re Tipperary fans all of a sudden, but we were happy to see Kilkenny beaten.

I’ve heard people saying that Tipperary and Kilkenny are now way out in front of everyone else. I’m probably biased but that’s not the way I see it. Right, Kilkenny aren’t going away. They’ve been producing great minor and U21 teams for a few years and their panel is probably more ripe than the Tipperary panel. Tipp have made the breakthrough now and they’re sure to be strong in the future.

However, Tipp winning the All-Ireland final is like a wake-up call for everyone else. If Kilkenny had won last week, then I think every other county would have just gone ‘Right, they’re unbeatable.’ But Tipp went up and had the belief to take Kilkenny on. They had the gumption to beat them, and by doing that they’ve shown the rest of us that we’re not far away.

Cork beat Tipp in the championship this year. Okay, we didn’t step it up after that but we beat them in May. That shows what can be done on any given day. Galway could have beaten Tipp in the quarter-final – there was only a point in it that day. So that’s the way I’m looking at it. Tipp’s win is good for hurling, because it makes it more interesting. If Chelsea win the Premiership every year, then the interest wanes. That might have been the way hurling went for a couple of years but it’s at least a two-horse race now. And maybe more. Tipp have given a few other counties a bit more belief. Kilkenny aren’t unbeatable.