ONE OF THE best young footballers in Tipperary is set to again try to make a breakthrough with the county’s senior hurling side in 2017.
Steven O’Brien was part of the extended panel when Tipperary lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup in September.
When Tipperary’s league campaign concluded last April, O’Brien came on as a late substitute during their quarter-final loss to Clare in Ennis.
But during the summer the 21 year-old didn’t make the 26-man squad for any of Tipperary’s five senior hurling championship outings.
At the same time the Tipperary footballers were embarking on a wonderful journey that saw them beat Cork for the first time in 72 years and reach a first All-Ireland semi-final in 81 years.
O’Brien is a hugely talented footballer, who had impressed for the Tipperary senior side in 2015. The Ballina club man had also displayed his capabilities last year in helping Tipperary reach the All-Ireland U21 football final and winning a Sigerson Cup with DCU.
O’Brien is the type of player that Tipperary football boss Liam Kearns wishes he could make the fulcrum of his team, a towering midfield figure who could control that sector and chip in on the scoring stakes.
But Kearns, speaking in Dubai yesterday on the 2016 Opel GAA-GPA All-Stars tour, has admitted that he knows O’Brien will not be returning to the football ranks next year.
Instead O’Brien’s goal will be to force his way into the hurling reckoning with Tipperary as part of ‘a two year-plan’ that Michael Ryan and his management team have in mind.
“It’s pretty simple now.,” says Kearns.
“The conversations are ‘Are you playing hurling or have you made (up your mind)?’. That was the bottom line.
“What I’ve heard is that it’s a two-year plan and they want to see whether he’s up to it. He didn’t make the panel – he only played a couple of competitive minutes last year.
“But my understanding is that he’s going to get his opportunity in the league that’s coming up. And then, I presume, they’ll make a decision on whether he’s good enough.”
There is no need for Kearns to pause when assessing O’Brien’s football abilities.
“But from our point of view we know he’s more than good enough. He’s one of the best young midfielders in the country.
“He was on the Munster senior team. He was Munster U21 player of the year in football. He’s on a football scholarship in DCU.
“So absolutely, I’m not giving away any state secrets by saying we’d be talking about building a team around him.
“Whereas now, at the end of the day it’s going to be very hard for him to break into an All-Ireland winning team.
“The best he can do, in my view, is get on the bench. And is he willing to sit on the bench for the whole year again? I don’t know.”
“We’re just going to have to suck it up, and if he makes it in hurling, well he makes it in hurling. And there’s no point in us dwelling on it.
“I’ll be honest with you, we dwelt on it a bit too long last year but I would say that was because we lost so many other players with him.
“Once we got on with it, we found that was the best way. There’s no point in talking about players who are not going to be with you.
“It’s a hurling county, there’s not a lot we can do about it. Remember, I’ve experience of it because I was in Limerick. All right, it was years ago but it hasn’t changed too much.”
Kearns never entertained the thought of trying to lure Seamus Kennedy – a Tipperary senior footballer in 2015 – back to the fold after a 2016 campaign when he grabbed the number five jersey and never relinquished it on an All-Ireland hurling team.
Watching the recent Tipperary county senior football final, Kearns was struck by how impressive the Loughmore trio of Noel, John and Brian McGrath were. But he is well aware that they are firmly embedded in hurling circles.
One hurler that Kearns can call on though is Bill Maher. At the close of last spring’s league, the 22 year-old came to the conclusion that he was not going to get game time with the Tipperary hurling side.
So he linked up with the football setup and never looked back, going on to produce a series of stirring, all-action championship displays at wing-back.
“Bill had his go (at hurling) for two or three years,” outlines Kearns.
“But that’s not (to) say, if he was performing very well at club level (that he wouldn’t be called back).
“But, thankfully, touch wood, he’s with us at the moment anyway. He did exceptionally well for a guy who played no football at that level for three years.”
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