Sacrifice by Cahill and his players has its initial reward

By Shane Brophy

Inter-county GAA demands a lot of sacrifice. Special occasions are missed in the quest for glory and Liam Cahill was rewarded for such on Sunday.

The Tipperary manager missed his daughter Roisin’s First Holy Communion on Sunday morning to be with his players as they prepared for a must-win game against Waterford, and in doing so rewarded the players for the sacrifices they have made over the last twelve months since exiting the championship at the group stage last year.

“The players have embraced everything we've done, and they've got their reward to date,” he began.

“To be one of the three to get out of Munster is a big target for us.”

Come a long way

It completed a massive turnaround from twelve months ago where Tipperary were eliminated prior to their final round game against Clare, following which Cahill reviewed every aspect of his and his teams preparation, from fitness to mindset, and both have been shown to have been in rude health over the last two games of the championship.

“That's a sign of everything that has been done,” he pointed.

“There have been big questions asked of everybody here. Hurling is religion in Tipperary. It's so, so important to everybody.

“To be fair, we and I say management, coaches, everybody involved, we just didn't represent that jersey correctly last year.

“We just didn't, and it weighed very, very heavy on us over the winter.

“We took unbelievable inspiration from our minors in particular last year, the way they grounded out the All-Ireland success in Nowlan Park. That, for me, leaving Nowlan Park, I was so happy to be a Tipperary man, but I was also so embarrassed that our flagship team didn't follow that and set that trend, that we had to rely on a group of younger players in Tipperary to show us the Tipperary way.

“My players acknowledge that. We've made the necessary adjustments to the personnel that's in the dressing room and they've gone after everything.

“They've backed me to the hilt in what I had to do.

“The people supporting them, I've asked more of them, and they've come to the table. Everybody has worked extremely hard and I'm just happy now that, as I said, we're one of the three out of Munster.

“It kind of opens up our season now to go aggressively, minimum, into the All-Ireland Series and see where it takes us.”

Embarrassment is a big word to self-assess a team, but Cahill admits you have to be brutally honest with yourself before attempting to right a ship.

“When you're in Tipperary, you guys know me, if you ask me a straight question, I try my best to give you a straight answer. Sometimes people should take offence with the question rather than the answer,” he continued.

“The reality of it is there are big standards in Tipperary; always have been.

“When you don't adhere to them, there are consequences.

“Yes, we're in a transition period here in Tipperary and we're rebuilding, but we won't be able to play that card forever; I'll be the first to admit that.

“There'll come a stage where I'll stand in front of you fellas, please God, and be able to say, lads the transition is over, it's time to deliver now. When that day comes, I'll be the first to acknowledge it and them fellas down the corridor will be the first to acknowledge it as well. We're finding little gains; little green shoots are coming all the time.”

He added: “We do know now that there's an adherence to the jersey that has to be applied every day and the Tipperary public will have no problem whatsoever once they see a hard-working Tipperary team fighting for everything on offer. That's minimum.”

Young blood

As well as the minor success from last year, Cahill also took inspiration from the under 20’s Munster final win midweek, adding that there is no greater booster than success in a dressing room.

“They bring energy to the set-up,” Cahill added.

“What's energy? They bring no fear because they have no baggage. They come in to a set-up where they're just absolutely mad eager.

“They're probably that little bit more in touch with the way the game has evolved as well.

“The last two and a half years has been difficult because there has been a lot of work to do. To go after a little element of culture, a little element of the way our game style was, to change it to come in line with what needs to happen to take on the big teams that are out there.

“The key was to get the right players in the dressing room that would embrace that. I think now that we have a mix of a number of younger players with the real, real, genuine, more experienced cohort, it's a lovely, lovely balance at the moment. It's something that I believe over the next couple of weeks that we can get a little bit more games out as the championship unfolds.”

In terms of the performances and victories in particular over the last two weeks, the introduction of new goalkeeper Rhys Shelly, and Andrew Ormond into the attack, brought a fresh element to the team which worked, and Cahill hopes it inspires greater intensity among the other players on the panel to raise standards to get into the team into the coming weeks.

“These might be difficult looking calls to the public because obviously you're not inside training every night, but these are calls that you have to stay honest with your players and if somebody's putting their hand up in training you have to reward them,” Cahill said.

“It just has to happen and these players that have shown their performances are rewarded and they're backing it up and once they stay backing it up they'll continue to have possession of the jersey.

“We're very fortunate now with a lot of players in Tipperary that can, how would you say, they can play different positions, they can transition across into different roles.

“So, as I said, we're far from the finished article but we're getting there and we're going to continue to stay working hard and we're enjoying it.

“Our supporters are back again and they love what they see and we'll just keep fuelling that as long as we can and please God, success will follow in time.”

Non-calls

While they weren’t crucial in the final outcome, Cahill was disappointed his side weren’t awarded two penalties in the game with Andrew Ormond and Darragh McCarthy fouled in goal-scoring positions, but neither were awarded.

“The officials have a tough job,” Cahill admitted.

“You're looking for gains on the line by challenging everything and sometimes you feel like an eejit at times challenging some of the stuff but I just think without creating any major uncertainty or mayhem, we need to call our umpires into play more, we really do.

“They have big responsibility now in the modern game because it's happening so quick and they just need to be that little bit more assertive I suppose in guiding the official on the day in the right direction.

“But all in all today we rode the punches, Sean Stack is a top-class referee and look we don't make excuses anyway, that just doesn't happen, so we'll plough on and we'll be better. We have a lot of areas to work on and as I said just delighted now to be still in the championship.”