Request to move game from Thurles to Clonmel rejected
By Stephen Barry
Philly Ryan hopes that his young squad can grow into the open spaces of FBD Semple Stadium as they welcome Waterford for the Munster Senior Football Championship quarter-final on Saturday evening.
Tipperary submitted a request to the Munster Council to switch the Championship opener to Clonmel, where they hosted two of their three home League games.
“It was a request we made on behalf of the players, and it wasn’t acceded to, unfortunately,” admitted Ryan speaking at the launch of the Munster Championships in Killarney last week.
“It was seen that Clonmel was maybe too small a venue for a Munster Championship match so they wanted to keep it in the Stadium.”
Ryan called on Tipp supporters to follow them into Thurles as they bid to avenge last year’s Fraher Field defeat, while hinting that future home games may move to other grounds.
“When teams come into Thurles, they’re coming into the second or third best stadium in the country and they’re getting a bounce off of it,” Ryan explained.
“I don’t think it does a huge amount for ourselves in terms of a crowd, support base, or how we play the game. And certainly, at the moment, we’re a bit young and with the injuries we have, I feel we could be stretched in Thurles as well. It’s a large venue for us to play with the age block of fellas.”
Tipp defeated the Déise by 1-14 to 0-9 in the League but the injury toll since that outing has caused a downturn in form.
Captain Steven O’Brien, top-scorer Seán O’Connor, centre-back Luke Boland, midfielder Cathal Deely, and man-marker Jack Harney were among those starters to miss the latter stages.
The 26 players named to face Wexford and Wicklow in the last two games of the league were also the 26 that were fit to play.
“At one stage, we had nine hamstring injuries,” Ryan revealed.
“That's a lot, and when you're carrying a new panel, it's an awful lot. If you’d strength and depth in the panel, you might be able to manage it, but we just weren't able.
“The lads are young. Their training block is fairly heavy. It's going to take time.
“They'll have a few games under their belt coming into the Championship, a run in the Tailteann Cup, given where we finished in the League, I think that's where we're going to be heading for regardless, so we’ll hope to have them right come Waterford, hopefully Clare, and into the Tailteann Cup then.”
He added: “I see my job as a building job. It won't be maybe the most successful job, but it'll be there for somebody in the future.
“We’d look to stabilise this year, we’d look to progress next year, and maybe look at promotion the year after. It’s got to be a slow progress. We’re on the long burner here, not a sprint.”
Their injury woes prompted a discussion among the management, medical staff, and Strength & Conditioning.
“We've looked at it and we've seen was there a common trend among them but there’s not. There’s nothing we can identify,” said Ryan.
“It's multi-factorial. There's the age of certain players, there's training loads, there’s the injury history, it's not just one specific thing.”
The Waterford game may come too soon for some of those injured players as Ryan pledges to prioritise longevity over short-term risks.
A dialogue with Under 20 manager Niall Fitzgerald about calling up some of their talented youngsters remains open.
“There’s a couple of 20s players that we feel would be ready to step into the squad but we’d like them to play their own age group first,” said Ryan.
“In saying that, we are hit at the moment with injuries, so I’ve had another conversation with Niall recently to update that one.
“There might be a couple of players that we’d like to earmark to come into the squad, but we haven’t had a full conversation around that yet.
“He still has to go into phase 2 with the under 20s and see how that goes for them. We’ll work something out between us but there may be one or two that we’d look at.”