Joint-Manager Donnellan praises Minors for standing up for Tipp Football
Tipperary minor football joint-manager Michael Donnellan has condemned the “hurtful” comments that followed the seniors’ loss to Waterford.
By Stephen Barry
The Portroe clubman was disgusted to see some online insults thrown at Tipp football since the Fraher Field defeat and that reaction made it even more vital for the minors to right the ship with an eight-point victory over the Déise on Tuesday evening.
“To get that win and get Tipp football back up smiling and happy, that’s important for us,” said Donnellan.
“You look at social media and there’s a lot of very hurtful comments from people who like football. I’m from what’s termed as a hurling club, but I do love football. Some of the comments are hurtful. People saying football in Tipperary is dead. It’s not. It’s alive and well.
“It’s seen here. It was seen last week with the 20’s. It’ll be seen tomorrow night again with the 20s. You can’t just look at one aspect, you have to look at every aspect. Our boys are flying it and that’s the way we want to stay going.”
Chief among them was high-scoring wing-back Jack Garrett, who tallied 0-5, with three points coming from play. He came off in the 57th minute suffering from cramp in both legs.
“Jack is a phenomenal athlete. He really is,” said Donnellan.
“The thing is he’s underage again next year. It’s good from a Tipp football perspective.
“We need to produce more lads like him. He’s flying it. He reminds me of a Brian Fox style of a player, attacking from the wing-back position.”
The senior result combined with the Waterford minors near miss against Clare underlined the challenge to achieve a positive outcome in Lemybrien.
“We’re happy with the most of it. We gave away some sloppy frees, many of them scoreable,” reflected Donnellan.
“But overall, we’d be absolutely delighted with the result. It’s not easy to come down here and get a result, as seen at the weekend.
“I watched that Waterford-Clare game four times and they left it behind them, in my opinion.
“In the past, you could come down and make multiple changes. We made a couple of changes because we have a big squad. There’s no Celtic Challenge like there is in the hurling so we’re hampered in that way.
“We have 38 in our panel, and we managed to get four more into it tonight. Hopefully, we’ll try to do the same the next day and try to utilise our squad.
“A couple of lads with niggles coming off is a bit of a concern but we’ll work on them over the next few days.”
The fixtures have fallen in such a way that Clare will face Tipp twice in the coming weeks. First in the concluding round-robin match and then the Darrel Darcy Cup final before both teams’ head into Munster semi-finals.
“Clare are never a bad team,” warned Donnellan.
“Especially over in West Clare, they’re proud football people. We’ve a lot of work to do over the next few days to get ready for a trip to Quilty but we’ll be ready for them.”