Heffernan not losing focus of the bigger picture

By Thomas Conway

As momentum begins to build around the Tipperary senior camogie team, the man at the helm of it all comes across as cool, calm and collected.

Manager James Heffernan has already, to some extent anyway, proven his competence in the role. Tipp’s recent Munster Final success secured the Clonoulty/Rossmore clubman’s his first piece of silverware in his maiden year in charge.

His side’s form during the latter stages of the league and throughout a Munster Championship campaign in which they accounted for Cork, Limerick and Waterford, has prompted questions as to whether this could finally be Tipp’s year in the All-Ireland Championship.

To Heffernan and his squad, however, all talk of them lifting the O’Duffy Cup is purely external hype. The Tipperary manager says that the All-Ireland title “hasn’t even been mentioned once” in the dressing-room and the focus is on “taking every game as it comes.”

He knows that that exact mantra, “take every game as it comes,” is shamelessly overused by managers at every level of every sport, but he thinks it is important, nonetheless. If Tipp lose focus and start looking too far ahead, he emphasises, they’ll “fall flat on their faces against Waterford, Cork and Galway” - their group stage championship opponents.

Heffernan, as you might imagine, was delighted with the Munster Final victory over Waterford but he still feels there is more in this Tipperary side.

Speaking in a sun-soaked Templemore ahead of a recent Sunday morning training session, the Tipp boss says he believes the tempo and the standard of the games is steadily rising. Thus far anyway, Tipp have been rising with it, and the plan is to continue to do so, ahead of another showdown with Waterford the weekend after next.

“We probably didn’t feel like we got to our best level in the Waterford game either,” he revealed.

“But I did feel like the Munster Final was a good step up from even the quarter-final against Cork. And I think the All-Ireland Championship will be another step up again. And we have to come up with that.”

Relatively good place

Tipperary are in a relatively good place. With the exception of Isobel O’Donnell, who underwent an ankle operation some weeks ago and will miss the remainder of the season, they have no other long-term injury concerns and most of the players are edging towards full fitness. That said, James says he is cognisant of the fact that injuries will inevitably occur, but that it is something the squad just has to deal with.

The new senior championship structure, in which the ten teams have been divided into a group of four and a group of six, has generated some debate, with the four team group of last year’s semi-finalists Galway, Cork, Waterford and Tipperary. In reality, the stakes are not all that high, given that third and fourth progress to the quarterfinals regardless against the top two teams from the six-team group. Still, each one of the teams in the four-team group 1 will be targeting a first or second-place finish, buying them a direct ticket to an All-Ireland semi-final in late July.

Heffernan is less focused on structure and more focused on substance. There is an ambitious vibe within this Tipp squad and James seems quietly determined. He knows Tipp have the quality internally and so the team they devote most attention to is themselves.

“We’re just focusing on Waterford now, and in saying that, we’re actually just focusing on ourselves,” he added.

“Yes, you’ll look at the opposition teams and you’ll analyse them, but you’re really just looking at your own form and your own fitness, and working on stuff that you yourself can control.”

The Clonoulty/Rossmore clubman is thoroughly enjoying the role. He says he has “great people around him” within the Tipp set-up and describes the players themselves as “a joy to work with.”

When he first took the job, he was well aware that there were always going to be ups and downs and he acknowledges that Tipp’s start to the year was somewhat shaky. But the entire squad is coming into form at the right time. If they hit their peak in high summer, as is the plan, they’ll have a tilt at the All-Ireland.