KILLINAN END - Mentality key to turnaround

In theory the proverbial six-day turnaround should be a chore. A challenge to sore limbs and tired minds.

However, based on what we saw in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday if there’s any good news to be had it’s that Tipp should be quite fresh and ready for the fray. There have been quite a few contenders for the mantle over the years but as fixture-fulfilling non-performances from a Tipperary team go this one is right up there. According to the manager training has been going quite well so we can only conclude that this is an utterly irrelevant guide at this point.

The opening twenty minutes was harmless stuff. While it was clear that Tipp were so far off the pace that they could not even break a tackle to get out of their full-back-line at least Limerick were not doing much either. Sending 65’s wide is not good but not the worst scenario either when the opposition is doing likewise as happened several times in the first-half. It’s difficult to find mitigating circumstances for being blocked down three times as Jake Morris was but as a symbol of the general malaise of the team it’ll do.

Liam Cahill referenced a lack of energy in the team, and this was the most conspicuous takeaway when all is said and done. Tearing into it and looking like you want to be there should be a bare minimum. It was the last place to go to if you didn’t fancy it much and the only positive was that Limerick hurled for only about fifteen minutes with the handbrake off. The brutal and unfortunate injury to Peter Casey sucked the momentum out of the game and that was all that saved Tipp from a beating of record proportions. We were on the brink of one of those days when they would have scored from every attack.

The job of picking the team off the floor is a considerable one. The challenge of doing so in such a small time-frame only complicates matters. But all is not lost, necessarily. As Antrim showed against Wexford you can go from no-show to big performance in a week. Indeed, the Model County themselves showed some of that last year after a loss to Westmeath when they bounced back to beat Kilkenny. They might require a similar feat this time around again if the trapdoor is to be dodged.

Can it happen for Tipp? Well, the aforementioned examples show it’s possible, but it is difficult to think of a Tipp team which came out of nowhere to achieve unexpected results. Of all counties we are one that tends to need to show a bit of form. There’s a story told of the 1991 Tipp team having a ‘home-truth’ pre-championship meeting in a dressing-room with management where everyone left knowing where they stood. As is the way with such events the subsequent All-Ireland success is often attributed to this psychological purging. A different team in a different era which was mature, successful, and had leaders in abundance. Does this team have that? I suspect it does if the energy can be properly channelled.

The management’s mindset might need some readjustment too. Comments attributed to team manager are usually responses to questions which themselves are not directly repeated in the newspaper. Sometimes this can give the wrong impression of a manager’s motivations. However, Liam Cahill’s references to Waterford and fielding questions about his time there is unhelpful. His view of Waterford returning to the style they had “in an All-Ireland Final, semi-final, National League title” (i.e., when he was manager) brings an unnecessary angle to an already difficult game. Maybe Cahill needed more time to process his time with Waterford before joining Tipperary, but we are where we are now, and this stuff needs to be parked.

Waterford are beatable if Tipp are willing to put their bodies on the line and hurl at championship pace rather than the ambling nature of their hurling last weekend. Listlessness is a hard habit to break though. When you look at Cork and the pressure on Pat Ryan with just one win in the last six Munster championship games (against Waterford as it happens) and then see the frantic nature of their hurling against Clare you would wonder. The Tipp team that showed up in Limerick would be blown away by the pace and intensity of that Cork team that struggles for results. They may not be perfect, and results suggest something is amiss but at least they are up for it.

Cork’s bad news might be that they are on zero points with the most difficult game – against Limerick – yet to come. Tipp’s positive spin might be that this game is behind them and now they face a team with just as speckled a record in recent years as their own. The fear is that the disastrous League semi-final against Clare piled on top of the no-shows against Waterford and Galway last year indicate a more deep-rooted problem. A Tipperary team without Cathal Barrett and Barry Heffernan at least is considerably weakened. What personnel are available for next Saturday is unclear now but a good paranoid siege-mentality performance in Walsh Park could do wonders. And it’s the least that’s required to save a season and a management team.