Captain O’Farrell is a true leader of men

Sam O’Farrell became the first Tipperary man to captain the county to minor and under 20/21 championship honours when he lifted the James Nowlan Cup on Saturday.

By Shane Brophy

Sam O’Farrell became the first Tipperary man to captain the county to minor and under 20/21 championship honours when he lifted the James Nowlan Cup on Saturday.

Three years ago, he did the same when the minors defeated Offaly in the dramatic final, becoming the second ever captain to do so following Galway’s Anthony Cunningham in 1983 & 1986

“It’s the stuff of dreams,” admitted the Nenagh Eire Og clubman.

“The feeling in that dressing room is second to none.

“We were here twelve months ago after losing to Offaly and we just said that is a feeling we don’t want to experience again, having regrets out on the field and coming into that dressing room, is not a nice place.”

He added: “It was touched on, but it was in the back of a lot of the older lads heads. The minors that had come up from last year had none of that baggage. Their fearlessness having come up from last year, winning an All-Ireland Final with thirteen men, combined with our hurt from last year was a recipe for the success and drove us on today.”

Just as he did in 2022, O’Farrell’s speech was full of class, further evidence as to why he has been twice seen as a leader of Tipperary teams, not just for his performances on the field of play.

He referenced the late Dillon Quirke in his address, who won an All-Ireland Under 21 title in 2018, and who passed away tragically in 2022. He would be a team-mate of O’Farrell’s on the senior team, and commended the close relationship between senior manager Liam Cahill and under 20 boss Brendan Cummins for balancing their workload in the campaign.

“The communication between Liam and Brendan has been top class,” he revealed.

“It would be remise of me not to mention Liam and his backroom team and how good they have been to us. When you think about the Munster Final and releasing us to play when we had a huge match to win against Waterford.

“From their point of view, looking at energy levels so that was a huge vote of confidence in allowing us to play whatever part we could play in the Munster Final.

“All five of us will dust ourselves down over the coming days and look forward to giving the seniors a right rattle in the next few weeks.”

From that point of view when you are a senior player on an under 20 team, you are expected to perform but that isn’t always the case as they rarely train with the rest of the squad until just before the start of the championship.

“That probably caught us on the hop in the Limerick game,” O’Farrell added.

“A lot of people might not know but that was the first time the seniors had played with the 20’s all year.

“We fitted back in like a glove, the craic we have with the lads is second to none. We have been together since under 14 so it is just a matter of building new connections with the newer lads coming in, and they are as easy to get along with. Playing with your own age group is a special thing.”

Usually when a team wins an underage All-Ireland, the focus is on which players have the potential to make it to the next level, but it can be forgotten that it also brings an end of an era where this group of players, many of whom started out in development squads at under 14, won’t share the same dressing room any more.

O’Farrell added: “It’s an absolute honour to play senior hurling with Tipp, playing and training with your heroes, it’s pinch yourself stuff, pucking backs with Noel & John McGrath, Ronan Maher.

“But this group of players have been playing with each other since Primary Game, under 14 Tony Forrestal winners, minor All-Ireland winners and today under 20 All-Ireland winners.

“It’s testament to the work put into us individually in our clubs but also the coaches at county level.

“It would have felt wrong if we had lost today, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”

So as both a Minor and Under 20 All-Ireland winning captain, the Nenagh man could get the chance to complete the set if he were to lift a Liam MacCarthy Cup but the twenty year-old isn’t getting ahead of himself.

“That’s a good bit down the line,” he said.

“There is a lot of lads ahead of me in the senior team, but the experience I have gotten playing under Ronan as the team captain and Jake as vice-captain, all of them, the older lads I would have gone to matches to see when I was younger. It’s second to one the experience and Ronan (Maher) is awfully good.

“The first night after we lost to Limerick, we went back into the seniors to train and everyone to a man was there to offer a bit of advice, Darragh Stakelum captained the under 20’s before and he had a lovely word for us and said, park it and move on and we were very grateful for that.”