Tipp’s 25 for 25

Tipperary’s 2001 winning team to he honoured on All-Ireland Final day

By Shane Brophy

The presentation of the Silver Jubilee teams is one of the nicest traditions of All-Ireland Final day and this year it is the Tipperary team of 2001 that will be honoured at Croke Park on Sunday.

It is hard to believe that almost 25 years have passed since the team, led by the great Nicholas English, won their 25th All-Ireland title with a 2-18 to 2-15 final victory over Galway, with the Liam MacCarthy Cup presentation taking place on the pitch as the Hogan Stand was undergoing reconstruction.

It bookended an unbeaten campaign where Tipperary won the National League, Munster and All-Ireland titles, playing thirteen matches, winning eleven and drawing two.

There was an element of pressure on Tipperary coming into the 2001 campaign as it was going into a tenth year without winning an All-Ireland title, plus manager Nicky English, along with coach Ken Hogan (Lorrha) and selector Jack Bergin (Moycarkey/Borris) were going into their third year at the helm.

One of English’s first decisions as manager was to make 24-year old Tommy Dunne the captain in 1999 and two years later he would have the honour of living every kids dream of lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup.

“A lot of people asked me over the years what was my biggest honour and achievement, and on a personal level and as a hurler, the most privileged thing was Nicky English asking me if I’d like to be the Tipperary captain,” Dunne revealed.

“That still has a huge significance for me that someone of his stature, a man who I had looked up to immensely when I was a youngster that he would consider me worthy of being captain.

“Nicky had such an aura and charisma that he carried a huge amount without ever having to say a whole lot.”

Off the back of gradual improvement each year, exiting the 1999 championship in a Munster semi-final replay to Clare in which they were mightily unlucky not to win the drawn encounter due to a controversial late penalty, converted by Davy Fitzgerald, rescuing the Banner, 2000 saw Tipperary record their first championship win over Clare since 1993, reaching a Munster Final where they lost to Cork and as well as an All-Ireland quarter-final to Galway, in which Eoin Kelly made his debut in the same season he also played minor and under 21.

“My claim to fame up to then was being the guy who was subbed off for Eoin Kelly against Galway,” laughed All-Ireland final goal-scoring hero Mark O’Leary.

However, Nicky English says the success that followed was built on the work done in 1999 and 2000, but he did tweak a couple of things for 2001, including the addition of trainer Jim Kilty and his SAQ (Speed Agility Quickness) approach.

“The endurance levels were built up in 1999 and 2000 under Ken Hogan and were ideal to add on with the SAQ approach and we reaped the benefits of that and had very few injuries,” Nicky English said.

Mark O’Leary added: “We were riding the transition between the old school and new type hurling where massive fitness was required and you had to watch your diet and we had a dietician and there was a psychologist available as well. Nicky would have been modern in his methods.”

Tommy Dunne also lauded the impact made by coach Ken Hogan and selector Jack Bergin in getting the panel to where they came to.

“Ken (Hogan) also had a huge impact on the team,” Dunne continued.

“He had the responsibility of getting the team physically fit as well as the hurling, which was no easy task as there was no GPS or tech as you have now. We were also fortunate to get into the Garda College who had really good facilities which we could avail of which came through him.

“I mention 1999 a good bit but what Ken did in 99 left a mark for a good few years. The winning of 2001, the physical prep work for it was done in 1999 and 2000 by Ken Hogan.

“Jim Kilty came in in 2001 and was the icing on the cake, with sprints and jumping hurdles, but we did very little physical training that year, we had enough of that in the bank from the previous two years, and we had few injuries, apart from John Leahy we had no major injury.”

“What Jack Bergin brought to it was the hurt of some of his experiences with Tipp in the mid-80’s and he had a ferocious determination because of that and didn’t want the same hurt he experienced to happen to us.”

National League

The scene was set for 2001 once the draw was made for the Munster Championship in late 2000 which pitted Tipperary against Clare once more in a semi-final, and with no backdoor at that stage of the competition back then, it was knockout, a Clare team looking to get one more All-Ireland out of their great team, with Tipperary looking to make the breakthrough.

For both teams, everything they did in the first half of 2001 was towards June 3rd at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, although it did have its roadblocks with the Foot & Mouth crisis in the spring seeing GAA games postponed with Tipp without a game for a seven-week period in February and March.

When the league did resume, a notable result was an away draw against All-Ireland champions Kilkenny which helped Tipp reach the knockout stages, and as fate would have it, four weeks before the championship, they and Clare would qualify to meet in the National League Final at the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick, with Tipp winning 1-19 to 0-17 with the game very much having a shadow-boxing vibe to it in some respects, added to by Nicky English’ actions in the dressing room in the aftermath.

“I remember vividly, we got into the dressing room and there was the cup, and Nicky English put it into a bag and put it on the shelf and said I have no interest in that anymore, that’s not what this season is about,” said Eoin Kelly.

English added: “Everybody knew whoever was going to win that championship match was going to have a great chance of going on and win the All-Ireland.”

Munster Championship

Four weeks later, the big day arrived in the cauldron that was Pairc Ui Chaoimh, in searing heat with a seasoned Tipperary team speckled with young stardust in the form of Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett, which created the iconic image of them embraced by the father of the team Declan Ryan during the national anthem.

“We were Declan Ryan’s legs,” Kelly said of his and Lar’s role in the full forward line.

“The respect we would have had for Declan Ryan and for the older guys on the panel, their word was final.

“He never said a cross word to anyone. His ball-winning ability was unbelievable so you could read that as he caught it as Mark O’Leary did coming off his shoulder did in the All-Ireland Final.

O’Leary continued: “I don’t think you could underestimate the importance of Declan Ryan in a team like that.

“He wouldn’t say a lot but when he did say something or did something, you’d follow him. His hurling was very clever, he wouldn’t go for his own score if someone else was in a better position.”

That game was also remembered for the crunching tackle Eoin Kelly received from Clare’s Ollie Baker and Seanie McMahon from where he bounced up of the ground, epitomising Tipp’s mentality was where it needed to be.

“We got that from training,” Kelly said of his preparation for that moment in his first championship start.

“I remember being flattened one night in training by John Carroll and Nicky English came over to me and told me to get up so as a nineteen year old I learned that this is what was expected so that was the apprenticeship.”

Tipperary won an incredibly tense and low-scoring game 0-15 to 0-14 with Tommy Dunne describing it as “the defining game.”

“The consequences were enormous,” he added. “I do remember a lot of relief after that. Had the team not won it, the chances were the door was going to close for some of the players and management.”

The game was also infamous in that the iconic John Leahy was sprung from the bench in the second half but within minutes suffered a serious knee injury which ended his campaign.

Four weeks later, it was back to Pairc Ui Chaoimh on another swelteringly hot day to take on Limerick in the Munster Final, with the Kelly brothers coming up against their first cousins, James and Ollie Moran.

While there was a backdoor for the loser of an All-Ireland quarter final, Nicky English said it was a game Tipp had to win to validate the progress they were making.

First half goals from Declan Ryan and Lar Corbett put Tipperary in a commanding position at half time but Limerick were resolute and going into the closing stages, the game was tied until late points by Brian O’Meara and sub John O’Brien won the day and Tipp’s first Munster title since 1993.

English recalls: “Johnno always holds it against me that the instruction I gave before going onto the pitch was not to get blocked down, which is something he remembered for the rest of his career.”

All-Ireland Semi-Final

In the modern championship, a Munster round-robin takes six weeks to play off so when you consider back in 2001 that Tipperary had to wait six weeks to play an All-Ireland semi-final against Wexford, it shows how inefficient the old system was, although the players would have played championship for their clubs in the intervening time, but there was certainly an element of match sharpness which almost saw them come a cropper against Wexford.

It was the day it almost ended in tears with everyone in Tipp welcoming the final whistle as Wexford came from the dead to earn a 1-16 to 3-10 draw.

“We were hanging on for dear life and I was praying for the final whistle,” English recalls.

“Having said that I was delighted as that was the game that won us the All-Ireland as we got another game in Croke Park six days later.”

It was also a game in which the Tipperary management made a key tweak with All-Star wingback John Carroll relocated to centre forward with Paul Kelly going to left wingback and Eddie Enright to midfield from centre forward.

“John was a very forceful player and it caught Wexford totally by surprise,” the Tipp manager added of the Roscrea man who scored a goal in both the drawn and replayed semi-final.

However, that win came at a cost with Brian O’Meara and Wexford’s Liam Dunne sent off, which meant the Mullinahone man would miss the All-Ireland Final through suspension, despite Tipp’s best efforts to make him available.

“We put in as much work as we made an appeal and got a hearing but ultimately, we were wasting our time,” the Tipp manager said.

“We decided to park it and not look to go to the High Court which would become a distraction.

“Brian said a few words at training few weeks out from the game that were really powerful in the overall context. It was a big sacrifice for him as the way he was playing, he was playing outstanding hurling that year and over the three years. He had put in as much effort if not a lot more.”

All-Ireland Final

“Brian was one our top three players up to that stage that year,” Dunne added.

“He had a very good Munster Final so not to have him was a pretty significant blow to the team. The team didn’t want to let him down as he was one of the longest serving players on the team so there was a huge motivational aspect for us. It’s still something that is sad for us to this day and a little raw.”

O’Meara’s unavailability left the management with a conundrum at wing forward for the All-Ireland Final against Galway who had upset defending champions Kilkenny in their semi-final.

Eugene O’Neill scored 2-1 in the replay against Wexford to force himself into the starting fifteen but he was an inside forward, so who would start on the wing? Eoin Kelly was handed the number 12 jersey but it was Lar Corbett who came out from the corner to play a key role in the final.

“I had huge faith in Larry Corbett,” English said.

In terms of the game, Tommy Dunne set the tone with the first point of the game which English recalls: “I couldn’t see into the Canal End with the sun but I remember hearing the pop of the ball off the hurley and it was pure and he went onto have a great game.”

It was the beginning of a man of the match performance by the Tipperary captain who scored five points, two from play and converted three 65’s.

“I wouldn’t consider it my best performance for Tipp,” Dunne admits which he feels was in 1999 in the drawn game v Clare.

“I knew was switched on from the start. I felt I couldn’t let this game go past me. Nothing was going to stop me from playing well, that was my mantra going into the game. The game had that much significance for me.

“Things took off, my timing was good, I was in the right place, my ball striking was good, I scored what I needed to score when I got the chance and it really flowed.”

Dunne also had the experience of playing in the 1997 final defeat to Clare but for Mark O’Leary it was all new and was relaxed ahead of the big day and came up big scoring 2-1 from play.

“We probably felt we were going to win it, not based on who we were playing, but on the way things had been going and the confidence within the group,” he recalls.

“The first goal was one of those runs you make a hundred times and the timing was right and ball was delivered at the right time. You practise somewhere a hundred times, and that is why you practise when you get into that situation and somewhere in the memory you know you have done it before and becomes that bit easier and don’t think about.

“The second goal wasn’t one for the purist. I often regretted I didn’t just pull on it and it might have looked a bit better but they all count.”

At the final whistle, “relief was the overwhelming emotion,” admitted Nicky English.

“We had a lot of players with a lot of experience and a lot of intelligence.

“Everything around them in terms of the training environment was as good as it could be.”

The 2001 All-Ireland success is also linked with the 9/11 terrorist attacks which occurred two days later with the home-comings into Thurles and Toomevara on the Monday night the only celebrations that were had before the tragic events.

Overall Reflections

For O’Leary, the mental preparation and belief the players had was central to their successes of 2001.

“We went out into every match and thought we were going to win it.

“We were used to getting over these tight matches and the management did a great job in making players believe they would get there no matter what happened. We were a very united panel.”

He added: “It was a sense of achievement. You had spent the twenty years before that following Tipp teams and going to matches thinking it could be you one day and it happens and you can hardly believe it.”

For Eoin Kelly, winning an All-Ireland senior medal in his first year at senior level made it feel like it would be this way all the time.

“When you meet up with the lads now and even now talking about it, it comes with the fondest of memories because we went through the whole season unbeaten.

“For me, it was an introduction to Tipperary hurling as a nineteen year old that this was what it was about and we are going to have this success and enjoyment every year but I learned the hard way as it took us eight years to get back to contest an All-Ireland and nine to win it which was pure relief whereas 2001 was new,” he said.

The last word goes to the captain Tommy Dunne who added: “What a wonderful time it was, not just 2001 but including the years leading up to it and getting to know Nicky English, Ken Hogan and Jack Bergin, and learning from them and getting to the point where we were fit to win an All-Ireland.

“They were great times. There were times we had a lot of fun as well, how much craic we had on the journey.

“How thankful and grateful we are to all the public that supported us during the time we were playing and at the recent Golf Classic. We were blown away by it.

“The Tipp supporters during those big games were magic. You’d be in the old dressing rooms in Pairc Ui Chaoimh and the noise would be coming down through the stands it was electrifying. They are the greatest days that I will ever experience. They were just magic.”