Football

Tipperary's football revolution rooted in turn of the decade progress

Tipperary celebrate after beating Dublin to win the 2011 All-Ireland MFC final            Picture: Seamus Loughran
Tipperary celebrate after beating Dublin to win the 2011 All-Ireland MFC final Picture: Seamus Loughran Tipperary celebrate after beating Dublin to win the 2011 All-Ireland MFC final Picture: Seamus Loughran

IT had been 72 years since Tipperary had beaten Cork in Championship football. Safe to say they weren’t expecting 2016 to be the year it happened.

That sounds contrary to the headlines about Tipp’s meteoric rise. And true, there was an inevitability that it would happen some day, sooner rather than later.

An All-Ireland and two Munster minor titles, as well as four more Munster final appearances and another September outing since 2008; the exact same provincial record at under-21, though with just the one unsuccessful All-Ireland final appearance.

A record superior to Kerry’s at under-21 level and to Cork’s at minor in these last eight years. Whether they win or lose to Derry on Saturday, the 2016 harvest has already been rich.

But to truly consider the achievement of beating the Rebels and finding themselves among the top 12 teams in the country, you must look at what Liam Kearns has lost.

Colin O’Riordan, who played on the 2011 All-Ireland minor winning team as an under-16, is in Australia with the Sydney Swans.

Steven O’Brien and Seamus Kennedy both opted for hurling. Liam Casey, Jason Lonergan, Kevin Fahey and Ross Mulcahy, all of the under-21 team that lost narrowly to Tyrone in last May’s decider, opted for summers in America.

Paddy Codd and Barry Grogan didn’t commit for the season. In recent weeks, Ian Fahey – another of last year’s under-21s – and Ger Mulhair are recent injury victims.

In light of all that, there was little in the way of expectation when they welcomed the Rebels to Thurles on June 12. Another glorious failure awaited, surely.

Not so. Just as in 2009, when this revolution all began.

David Power was 26 when he was handed the job of taking Tipperary minors. He’d been a county minor footballer himself as recently as 2001.

Tipperary had been in three Munster minor finals under Peter Creedon and Philip Ryan in the six years previous, but never at the expense of either of the big two.

They travelled to Cork for a provincial semi-final as lambs to the slaughter, just like all the rest. Except this time, Tipp won.

A three-point win after extra-time didn’t bring a Munster title – Kerry turned them away in the final – but it wasn’t far away.

“Going back to the ’09 result, and I suppose it’s only when you look back to it, Tipp had got to a couple of Munster finals without beating a Cork or a Kerry. In ’09, we beat a Cork, which was huge,” recalls Power.

“Going down to Cork that day, we were going down with the view of getting a good performance.

“When it came then to getting a panel together for 2010, there were fellas who were more than capable of being on a football team but would normally play hurling, they were now wanting to be on the football panel. That was the big thing.”

By the end of the following year, Tipperary were Munster minor champions for just the seventh time, and just the third since 1955.

Power also guided the under-16s to a first ever Munster title, all after the Premier under-21s had become provincial champions for the first time ever.

As much as the Tom Markham Cup would make its disbelieving journey to the footballing heartlands of south Tipperary in 2011 – its first visit to Munster since Cork won it in 2000 – it was 2010 that Power says laid much of the foundations.

“Really the defining moment was in 2010. From that, this crop of players have really come through,” he says.

“If you look at the Munster under-21 team, you’ve [Peter] Acheson, you’ve Conor Sweeney, you’ve Ciaran McDonald, they were all on that team.

“Of the minor team then, there were more, and could have been a couple more, only that they’re not playing at the moment for one reason or another.”

Power moved on to the under-21 job in 2013 and did two seasons. Since winning the 2011 All-Ireland minor title, they’ve appeared in six provincial finals between the two grades, as well as being back in last year's national minor decider.

There may not have been silverware to show from any of them, but as the current Wexford senior boss argues, merely competing regularly at underage has proven enough for Kerry and Dublin down the years.

“Look, no county has a good minor team every year. But once you’re competitive and you’re getting to finals every couple of years, that’s the main thing at minor level.

“It’s gas, with all the success Dublin have been having, they only won one minor All-Ireland and that was in ’12. People have to put it into perspective as well.”

The ripple effect has been massive. Last winter, Clonmel Commercials became the first ever club from the county to win the Munster senior title.

Intermediate football in the county wouldn’t be regarded as particularly strong, but the six-point half-time lead that Upperchurch-Drombane held on Kerry and Bryan Sheehan’s Cahirciveen was the nearest anyone came to stopping them winning the All-Ireland.

They have 16 senior clubs at present, though Power believes a restructure of the grades could help strengthen the intermediate and junior championships.

But things are better for Tipperary football than they’ve been at any time in living memory.

When Kevin O’Halloran kicked two late frees to beat Cork at senior level for the first time since 1944, it was a hugely significant moment.

Kerry were too many for them in the final, worthy of their ten-point win. It was poor timing for a poor display.

They made the last 12 through the back door two years ago before losing to Galway, and a first ever All-Ireland quarter-final is the immediate and achievable goal in Breffni Park on Saturday.

But the bigger step that they need to take is back home in Munster.

“At senior, the big thing that needs to happen is to win a Munster title in order to keep our best players playing football,” says Power.

“We need to get to the last eight or the last four in Ireland, and then you’ll know you have players.

“In fairness to Liam Kearns and his backroom team, they’ve done a very good job in terms of what they’ve been handed. I’d say he’d be frustrated that he doesn’t have certain players available for his selection.

“Over the next couple of years, there’s a couple more good players coming through at minor and under-21, and I think the senior squad will just get stronger in time.

“It’s about making that breakthrough now at senior level; that’s probably the next goal for Tipperary football.”