Ryan putting the call out for unity and patience

By Stephen Barry

Philly Ryan hopes his Tipperary squad will be as good as their word to keep the group together for 2026.

The Premier panel has been decimated by players dropping out in recent years and Ryan hopes to combat that trend by retaining the current crop to build upon their debut campaign.

“It hurts them to lose,” said Ryan following their Tailteann Cup exit at the hands of Leitrim.

“They want to win. They want to be successful. They want to push on.

“We have agreed, and I hope that we will agree, that we'll stick together as a group. We don't want to haemorrhage players over the summer.

“We're hoping that when they go away during the summer and reflect that they'll stick with us.

“We want a good club campaign out of a lot of lads. We'll hope to keep together as many players as we can and move into next year with the same crew.”

Tipp's eight-point defeat to Leitrim marked a subpar championship conclusion which saw them beat Waterford but suffer subsequent defeats to Clare, Kildare and Sligo.

“Whatever happened, we just seemed to be very flat from the off. They denied us possession,” said Ryan of the Leitrim game.

“You play with the wind and you don't get your hands on the ball. You want to be playing with the ball. You can't play without it. It's a lot of work to do when you don't have it.

“We didn't press them. And we wanted to press them. We seemed to sit back with the wind and not get to their ball carriers. Going in at half-time with three points wasn't good enough.

“We want an average of thirty shots in every match. If we can score two-thirds of that, that's twenty scores we get, but we're not hitting that target. So, it's something we’ll look at when we review the year.

“But look, the one thing I'll give the lads, we finished very strong, and we'll be very happy with the way we finished.

“We've asked all year… I think people have to be patient with us. It's a young team. You can see the age profile of it.

“We know we're meeting Leitrim in the League next year, and we'd hoped to come and set a marker. Unfortunately, they've set it more than we did.”

Ryan highlighted their stronger finish in the context of some fade-outs in previous games.

“They're not up to the conditioning levels of this seventy-minute game yet so that's what we're aiming to get them towards.

“We'll be touching base with the lads over the summer when their club championship finishes, and we'll be trying to get them back as early as possible, try and get them into their gyms, get them back running, and have them ready for the first round of the league.

“You know, you start on the 7th of December last year, and then you have five days off again over Christmas. So, you have two weeks to train. New group, new management. It makes it very difficult. Three or four weeks later, you're playing in the National League first round.

“We weren't very challenge-friendly last year. Not many teams wanted to play us. So hopefully they will next year. I'm putting the call out there now!”