We owed it to everyone to give it our all - Maher

By Stephen Barry

Tipperary captain Ronan Maher feels the players owed it to Liam Cahill to get back to Croke Park after a tough 2024 campaign.

The Premier chief’s debut year in 2023 ended at the quarter-final stage before a winless second season increased the scrutiny.

However, the green shoots have blossomed this year to deliver a first All-Ireland final appearance since 2019.

“It's great to get him back up to Croke Park. He deserves it more than anybody else,” said Maher.

“We put down a tough season last year, and I suppose we, as players, didn't represent Liam the way he should have been represented.

“That was our aim, just to get back playing for him, and for the management team, and the way they've brought us up, and how to play hurling for Tipperary.

“He's unbelievable when he takes drills, and he's unbelievable in the dressing room, and I couldn't think of anybody else that we'd like there at the minute. He's been unbelievable, and he supports us in every way possible, so he's unbelievable for us.”

Blue and Gold captain Maher repeatedly refers to those “hard times” as forging a tighter bond in the group.

“There was a lot of sleepless nights since we finished up in the championship,” he revealed.

“When you're away from each other, it's really hard, and you're thinking the whole time. It was definitely a tough part of the year.

“When you go through those hard times, it brings you that bit closer, because you're having those conversations with the lads. It definitely helps. The closer you are as a group of players, there's nothing false then in training, or there's nothing false in the environment.

“It's a healthy environment to be in, and when you go to the trenches and the games are tough, the lads will pull you out. It's definitely come through the hard times as well.

“It's a tight group, and I feel like we've got a lot tighter this year. I've seen that on the pitch as well. It's impacted us hugely.”

Sunday’s opponents, Cork, have been a major perpetrator of those hard times, between last year’s championship demolition, this year’s league final defeat, and the championship repeat with fourteen men. Maher is asked to diagnose the worst of those defeats.

“The worst of them? Jeez, they all weren't great now, to be honest with you,” he replies.

“Listen, they're all hard to take. Any day you go out, if you lose by a point, if you lose by ten points, I never like losing, so they were all tough ones.

“That's what we're going out to do, try and right them wrongs, and I suppose it's a real test now of the group, if we can take the learnings from those three difficult defeats, and try and bring it forward to Croke Park.

“But it's really about implementing our own game plan as well and bringing that to the field as best we can.

“I suppose the league final was tough, and going into the Munster Championship, losing to them, going a man down, that was a difficult day for us.

“But I would like to think that the lads that stayed on the field, we fought on our backs for seventy minutes. That shows where we were as a group, the way we put in the big shift with fourteen men.”

Maher knows that the best lessons and motivation come from those losses. Not that he will lack for inspiration to make history. Should Tipp win Liam MacCarthy, Maher would add his portrait to the famous roll of honour outside Semple Stadium as the ninth Thurles Sarsfields captain to lead his county to All-Ireland glory.