To the End

IN ALL FAIRNESS

There is an episode in the final season the award-winning ‘The West Wing’ television series which aired from 1999 to 2006 in which presidential candidate Arnold Vinick was embroiled in a controversy around his support for the development of a nuclear power station 26 years previous, which had an accident during the campaign, and threatened his chances of victory. It was an issue that refused go away until he took the unusual decision, against that of his numerous advisers, to take part in a ‘til they stop’ press conference where he would take each and every journalists questions on the issue, no matter how long it took until they ran out of questions, which ended the issue once and for all.

This was what came into my mind when Liam Cahill spoke for seventeen minutes at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday after Tipperary’s disappointing 2026 campaign finally came to an end. To explain to those not in the media bubble, post-match interviews of that duration are not the norm, usually no more than five to ten minutes covers a lot of things.

You wouldn’t have blamed the Tipperary manager if he wished to keep it short but as is his way over the last thirteen years, starting out at minor level in 2014, he never shirks responsibility and wasn’t going to start on Sunday.

People can read a lot into what someone says in a post-match interview, particularly after a poor campaign which it was for Tipperary as defending All-Ireland champions, finishing the Munster round-robin at the bottom of the table with a -32 score difference.

He wasn’t just speaking to the assembled media, as it is easily forgotten what the media are, it’s in the name, an abbreviation of the word medium, a conduit per say for information to be passed into the public domain, and in this case the Tipperary supporters.

Particularly in a local sense, we in the Nenagh Guardian and I am sure it is the same for the other local media in the county, we look to ask the questions that the supporters would like the answers to; be it team selection, injuries, tactics, and what have you depending on the circumstances.

Supporters might not like the answers they get but they are what we can get and to be fair, any Tipperary manager I have come across in my twenty years, both hurling and football, have never shied away from being questioned when the results haven’t been good, unlike some in other counties.

In a hurling sense, Liam Cahill and all Tipperary managers in all grades understand the passion there is for the game in the county, and how central it is to the fabric of who we are, and when a season doesn’t go as well as hoped this year, there needs to be an explanation in some shape or form.

2025 was always going to be hard to replicate. The hunger from the humiliation of 2024 plus the arrival of young blood created the perfect storm which led to Tipp’s greatest All-Ireland success of my time because it was so unexpected. They needed to find another target to go after and while we liked to deflect the constant talk from outside the county of not being able to retain the Liam MacCarthy Cup since 1964-65, maybe they should have embraced it as a challenge, and one the next successful All-Ireland winning team will use to steel themselves because Tipp were nowhere near the level they were last year.

While Tipp’s heavy defeat on Sunday wasn’t the ideal way to honour the memory of Liz Howard, her loyalty as a supporter was never more to the fore than after a loss. Win, lose or draw, she was always proud of every man and woman who wore the blue & gold jersey.

She saw the players as an extension of her family, and dare you criticised the players in any shape or form, she would let you know as she always had their backs. She was fearless in what she had to say even if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear but her heart was always in the right place.

That strong heart is what got her through difficult recent years of ill-health and I was fortunate on many occasions to be in her company at Tipperary medal presentations, the most recent as last November when the senior hurlers received their All-Ireland medals.

That she tricked her doctors to attend the Tipperary v Cork game six weeks ago wasn’t a surprise. This was a person who attended every Tipperary event she could, from the Quid Game fundraiser in Templemore last November to being in Croke Park last February for Ger Ryan’s unsuccessful attempt to become GAA President, which was the last time I met her.

A Tipp lady to the end and no better woman to pull a few strings in her new home to help turn the senior hurling ship around sooner rather than later. May she rest in peace!