WHEN IT WAS put to him, Tipperary manager Liam Cahill turned philosophical about the league semi-final loss to Clare. What else could he do?
“When the stakes go up, different players react differently,” he said.
“Some of our players today when the pressure cooker was turned up fairly high, they just weren’t able to find the answers. That comes with practice.
“They’ll have to go away, take the lessons out of that, and work hard on it. We have to have quite a number of discussions as a manager and players between now and the next five weeks to really make fellas aware of where they’re at, what areas they need to improve on, and give them the support to do that.”
Tipperary get their Munster championship off to a start on 28 April. As it happens, it’s away to Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds. Nice handy one.
Cahill was double-jobbing as supportive manager and salesman for the ticket sales to come. The day was poxy for them. Everything about it. But he is writing the whole venture off as a bad idea.
‘Tis only the league, will get some purchase in Tipperary right now.
“I have to really get behind these players now. They don’t become bad hurlers after one 70 minutes in the middle of March,” said Cahill.
“Our goal was always the 28th of April. That’s what we’re aiming for. We’re not going to hide under that today and use that as an out today, we are disappointed we didn’t perform and we didn’t give the big travelling Tipperary supporters a little bit more to go on.
“We flashed into the game for 10 or 15 minutes after half-time, we looked to be finding our way but then just lost it again. There’s a bit of work for us all to do, both players, coaches, managers, and everyone to get behind what needs to happen to have us competitive and in the right place for the 28th of April.”
He has five weeks to get things right. Five weeks to get something more than last year, which amounted to third in the group in Munster, a slaughtering of Offaly in the preliminary quarter-final before a two-point loss to Galway in the quarter-final.
Can those weeks be transformative?
“They’ll have to be. But there’s great character in that room,” he answered.
“We have a great mix of experienced fellas in their twilight years and some good aggressive young lads who have come in in the past few years.
“There’s a nice mix there, they’re a good tight group and we love working with them. We love coming to the training field with them, myself and Mikey, and we’re not going to give up on them anytime soon.
“Because this is a new crop of Tipperary hurlers coming, not maybe for this year but I think in the time that we’re here the Tipp team will have transitioned fully.
“So to the Tipp supporters I would say stick with them. They will come right. Because what I see in training is not what transpired here today. The day they do bring their training form to the pitch, they’ll be a match for anyone.”
