Tipp need to develop strengthening culture - Christie

By Shane Brophy

Tipperary under 20 manager Paddy Christie has said a culture of strength & conditioning work needs to be developed in the county if they are to compete with the powerhouses at inter-county level.

One of the noticeable aspects from the defeats of Tipperary’s underage teams at minor and under 20 level in football and hurling last week, was the difference, particularly Cork had in the area of physicality and athleticism. That extra power proved to be their trump card in this under 20 football final win over a gallant Tipperary, but Christie says players with an ambition of playing inter-county, shouldn’t just wait until they are brought into a development squad or inter-county squad to begin that process.

“Strength & Conditioning is a big thing, and they (Cork) can’t just have been all naturally 6ft2 inch body-builders, they have been doing it for years,” he pointed.

“That is a culture as well. It is grand saying – we are going to have a gym programme- but what really has to happen long term for this to really work is these guys to do it by themselves.

“It’s not laziness on our part….but what has to happen here is, whenever we finish, these guys need to carry this on by themselves because ultimately that is where you are going to get the gains. You can preach and monitor, but fellas need to make this (strength & conditioning) part of their life, and then the likes of David Power, myself, or whoever is involved will then take these players in November and December, and not have to do a big bulk of work with them, that you can concentrate on the football side of things, as the strength and conditioning has already been covered.”

While the defeat to Cork ended their season, it was a positive campaign overall with two championship wins over Limerick and Waterford, having failed to win a match in the grade for six years, and getting a taste for winning and having the extra training sessions it brings is huge for a players development.

“When you keep on losing games like that every year it starts becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Christie added.

“Winning the Limerick game was a big one because Tipp had started to lose to Limerick regularly, and it happened again last night at under 17 level.

“I felt this year being new to the group there was a little bit of negativity around them, but I understand why because if you are constantly losing games that niggle is there all the time. Against Limerick I don’t know did these players genuinely believe, but thankfully on that night we played some really good football, struggled in patches, but overall played really well and out-fought them.

“Against Waterford we just slogged it out and won in an ugly manner but showed great heart. Tonight, we didn’t have enough but fought really hard, scored a couple of lovely goals.

“My fear was this evening that we wouldn’t do ourselves justice and while the second quarter was disappointing where we will look back on why did that happen, that is the part I can only reflect on negatively.

“When Cork went three points up at the start we never panicked, came back and scored two goals and two points.

“The only sad thing about this level is if we were beaten by Limerick in the first round, any momentum was gone straight away so what we really need to get this up and running is five, six, seven really good games to get you battled-hardened and develop a bond and we started to get that by getting to a Munster Final.

“The danger is for the likes of the under 17’s last night, they are gone after one match and it is very hard to build something when you are getting hit with a sucker-punch just as you start.”