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Brendan Maher was speaking at the AIB GAA provincial finals media day.
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'The families affected are still grieving - that'll always be there. But it is nice to give a little boost'

Brendan Maher and Borris-Ileigh are gearing up for their first Munster final since 1986.

ABOUT 12 MONTHS ago, Brendan Maher was stepping up his recovery from a cruciate injury when he took part in a fitness test with Tipperary. 

Maher had been progressing nicely until he went down with some pain in his knee and his mind inevitably started racing with worry.

“I’m after doing it again. I’ll have to go for surgery again.”

Thankfully it was just a minor setback that delayed his recovery by two weeks – a small inconvenience in the grand scheme of the nine-month long rehabilitation. 

He admitted to worrying if he’d ever get back onto the field, but those concerns proved unfounded.

A year on, Maher is an All-Ireland champion once again with Tipperary while his club Borris-Ileigh ended a 33-year wait without a county title earlier this month. When he eventually hangs up his hurley, he may well reflect on 2019 as the greatest year of his career.

That’s not just down to their victories on the hurling pitch. The local parish was struck by a number of tragedies over the previous year, which made the Tipperary SHC success even sweeter.

“Myself and Dan [McCormack] were talking about it, and it’s not to be disrespectful to anything we’ve won with Tipp, but it [the county title] does trump everything,” Maher says. 

“It’s nice to just have something positive to be talking about. Because it just felt like since August of last year it was just one after the other. 

“Obviously it started off with Martin Hayes unexpectedly dying, and he was a huge member of the club who was involved with several teams. That flowed into the news of Amanda (Stapleton) being sick and my own cousin Lorraine got sick and they both passed away. 

“And then we had the two young men who passed away within a few months of each other. It just seemed like one after the other, it was just constant. 

“I remember someone saying, ‘God, if I have to do another guard of honour now, I’ll go mad.’ It just seemed like that was constantly happening.”

That’s why their victory over Kildangan was so special. 

tommy-ryan-celebrates Borris-Ileigh’s Tommy Ryan celebrates after their Munster semi-final win over Glen Rovers. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

“It’s nice to have something positive to talk about and something positive to give people a lift,” he adds. “It hasn’t got rid of thoughts about them. Obviously, the families affected are still grieving – that’ll always be there. It is nice to give a little boost and lift the spirits a bit.” 

Once the celebrations wrapped up, Borris-Ileigh had a short turnaround before their Munster clash against Cork’s Glen Rovers but they navigated that hurdle in style just days later.

“It’s kind of all flowing on I suppose after the county final win. Obviously that week was a bit mental. There was celebrations and everyone you’d meet, it was just pure elation around the town. Very quickly then it obviously turned to, ‘Oh, the best of luck on Sunday’. 

“And it felt a bit weird actually. You were barely coming off the celebrations and hangover from the county final and there was talk of Glen Rovers. Yeah, it was a mental week, it was a busy week. 

“And, then, obviously, just to get the performance against them and to get the win just gave us that time to just reset and say, right, we’ve two weeks now, let’s get going. 

“It’s great. There’s a nice little buzz around the place. We haven’t had it since the 1980s. Everywhere you go it’s the topic of conversation.

“Johnny Kelly was great in that he spoke to us on Wednesday night after the county final about his experiences with Portumna and how they won their first one and celebrated it in style and hadn’t taken the next stages (seriously) and ended up getting caught by Dunloy, who beat them unexpectedly. 

“And he said that they had huge regrets over that. And he was kind of saying it would be similar for us if we go out, don’t perform against Glen Rovers, and lose. It would put a dampner on the county final win and we’d always have that in our minds.

kevin-maher-and-ciaran-cowan-celebrate-at-the-final-whistle Kevin Maher and Ciaran Cowan celebrate at the final whistle. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

“So that fairly well woke us up and got us to say, ‘Lads, we need to get over this one now and make sure we take things going.’ And, thankfully, we did that. It’s the same again on Sunday.”

They’ll be underdogs again this weekend when they face Waterford kingpins and reigning provincial champions Ballygunner, who reached last year’s All-Ireland semi-final stage before losing to the eventual winners Ballyhale Shamrocks. 

Despite the fact their last run in Munster arrived in the 1980s, Borris-Ileigh are a club with a strong tradition. They were crowned All-Ireland champions in ’87 and Maher believes his team-mates can draw on that history of success.

“I suppose it adds to your belief that you know the guys that were involved and you say, ‘If they did it, why can’t we?’

“You obviously want to push yourself as much as possible to try and emulate what they did as well. There are two sides to it. It gives you belief but also gives you motivation as well.

“We’re obviously huge underdogs against Ballygunner. But we want to get a performance out of ourselves and be able to go back to Borris-Ileigh with our heads held high. If that brings a win, then, I mean, it would be a great position to be in looking forward to an All-Ireland semi-final. 

“We believe we can do it. We’re not going down to make up numbers or anything like that. Club hurling is club hurling and at this time of the year anything can happen and we’ll give it everything we can.” 

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