IT WAS A harmless enough question about spring experimentation that led Liam Cahill to respond with his own more cutting question last weekend.
Tipp had just beaten Kilkenny, their 13th win in 15 regulation league games under Cahill, when he was asked about the 32 different players he has used this term.
His answer was along anticipated lines: ‘the players have been phenomenal and continue to be’ ‘really, really enjoyable to get into the car every evening to go training’ when things turned salty.
“People say Tipperary under Liam Cahill will win matches in the spring but can they do it in the summer?” said Cahill, abruptly shifting focus to the elephant in the room.
He may have had a few critics in mind. During a discussion on the Smaller Fish podcast in January, pundit and former Offaly player Brian Carroll went in hard on Cahill, identifying an apparent trend of his teams engaging in spartan training each winter, lording it in the National League and then suffering summer fatigue, ultimately ending in Championship collapse.
“Anyone with their ear to the ground knows that Tipp have been doing a savage amount of training,” said Carroll. “They’re absolutely flying fit. But this is year six of Liam Cahill doing the same thing over and over again on repeat. It’s like, dog them in the winter, take it really seriously during the league and then they run out of steam come June.”
The stats from Cahill’s five-and-a-half seasons so far in inter-county senior management, with Waterford and his native Tipp, are interesting.
Last Sunday’s 2-25 to 1-19 win over Kilkenny was Tipp’s 17th league game since Cahill took over ahead of the 2023 season. Prior to that, he presided over 17 league games with Waterford across the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons.
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Of those 34 league games, his teams have won 24 times and drawn once, losing just nine matches, a healthy 71% win record. Two of those defeats came in league semi-finals, to Limerick in 2023 and Clare last year, while Cahill’s Waterford team of 2022 won the league outright.
Tipp are now top of Division 1A, one point clear of Cork with one game left to play – at home to Clare on Saturday week – and in great shape to make the final.
Meanwhile, in the Championship, Cahill’s teams across the past five seasons have contested 24 games and won just nine, a 39% win rate.
Liam Cahill during Tipp's Munster Championship defeat to Cork last year. Laszlo Geczo / INPHO
Laszlo Geczo / INPHO / INPHO
His 10 Championship games as Tipp manager have yielded just one win over a genuine MacCarthy Cup contender, Clare, in the first of their round robin games in 2023. Their only other Championship match win under Cahill was over Offaly, the beaten Joe McDonagh Cup finalists in 2023, who Tipp hit for 7-38 in a near meaningless All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final tie.
There have been three draws in there too as Tipp manager, against Cork and Limerick (2023) and Waterford (2024) but, frankly, when has the Premier County ever luxuriated in stalemates?
All of which points to a clear imbalance between how Cahill teams perform when the mercury is low and when the sun is high in the sky.
The outlier is the 2020 season when he took Waterford to the All-Ireland final. Back to Carroll who noted that it was a December final, in the first year of the pandemic.
“That year, with Covid obviously, okay they might have been training earlier in the year individually (but) then they went off and they played the club season first and then they came back into this little shortened window for the inter-county,” said Carroll, pointing to a freshness that Waterford may not ordinarily have had. “And there was no round robin that year, it was straight knock-out.”
Carroll’s discussion with podcast host Colm Parkinson, the former Laois footballer, ended with Parkinson claiming that Waterford were inadvertently “fresh as daisies at the right time of the year” then but that Cahill “still won’t get the memo” to change his approach.
Cahill addressed the issue in a lengthy interview with The Nenagh Guardian’s Shane Brophy last month.
“I know the narrative is out there that Liam Cahill’s teams, ‘he kills them in training and has them flogged to death before the Championship comes around’,” he said. “You cannot help but hear that but the reality of it is, we’ve a lot of professional people. I just don’t arrive to Dr Morris Park and get out of the car and say, ‘Right lads, what will we do tonight?’ This is planned.”
Cahill conceded he got some of his plans wrong last year as Tipp followed up a league semi-final appearance with a rock bottom finish in the Munster round robin. Yet despite all the talk of winter and spring slogging, he actually felt “we hadn’t enough work done” in 2024.
There is no sense of any shift in approach then for 2025. And, clearly, the Tipp hurlers are bouncing off the spring turf again. It just remains to be seen if they can extend that form into summer this year.
Cahill will be banking on capitalising on what appears to be a settled team, powerful in defence, strong in the spinal positions and inspired by the chutzpah of youngsters Darragh McCarthy, Sean Kenneally, Sam O’Farrell, Robert Doyle and Oisin Donoghue.
Answering his own question on Sunday evening, Cahill indicated that it’s business as usual and that he will continue to chase results ahead of the Championship.
“Does it suit Tipperary to reach a league final and win it?” He asked. “It does.”
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'Can they do it in the summer?' Liam Cahill seeks to change unwanted Tipperary trend
IT WAS A harmless enough question about spring experimentation that led Liam Cahill to respond with his own more cutting question last weekend.
Tipp had just beaten Kilkenny, their 13th win in 15 regulation league games under Cahill, when he was asked about the 32 different players he has used this term.
His answer was along anticipated lines: ‘the players have been phenomenal and continue to be’ ‘really, really enjoyable to get into the car every evening to go training’ when things turned salty.
“People say Tipperary under Liam Cahill will win matches in the spring but can they do it in the summer?” said Cahill, abruptly shifting focus to the elephant in the room.
He may have had a few critics in mind. During a discussion on the Smaller Fish podcast in January, pundit and former Offaly player Brian Carroll went in hard on Cahill, identifying an apparent trend of his teams engaging in spartan training each winter, lording it in the National League and then suffering summer fatigue, ultimately ending in Championship collapse.
“Anyone with their ear to the ground knows that Tipp have been doing a savage amount of training,” said Carroll. “They’re absolutely flying fit. But this is year six of Liam Cahill doing the same thing over and over again on repeat. It’s like, dog them in the winter, take it really seriously during the league and then they run out of steam come June.”
The stats from Cahill’s five-and-a-half seasons so far in inter-county senior management, with Waterford and his native Tipp, are interesting.
Last Sunday’s 2-25 to 1-19 win over Kilkenny was Tipp’s 17th league game since Cahill took over ahead of the 2023 season. Prior to that, he presided over 17 league games with Waterford across the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons.
Of those 34 league games, his teams have won 24 times and drawn once, losing just nine matches, a healthy 71% win record. Two of those defeats came in league semi-finals, to Limerick in 2023 and Clare last year, while Cahill’s Waterford team of 2022 won the league outright.
Tipp are now top of Division 1A, one point clear of Cork with one game left to play – at home to Clare on Saturday week – and in great shape to make the final.
Meanwhile, in the Championship, Cahill’s teams across the past five seasons have contested 24 games and won just nine, a 39% win rate.
His 10 Championship games as Tipp manager have yielded just one win over a genuine MacCarthy Cup contender, Clare, in the first of their round robin games in 2023. Their only other Championship match win under Cahill was over Offaly, the beaten Joe McDonagh Cup finalists in 2023, who Tipp hit for 7-38 in a near meaningless All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final tie.
There have been three draws in there too as Tipp manager, against Cork and Limerick (2023) and Waterford (2024) but, frankly, when has the Premier County ever luxuriated in stalemates?
All of which points to a clear imbalance between how Cahill teams perform when the mercury is low and when the sun is high in the sky.
The outlier is the 2020 season when he took Waterford to the All-Ireland final. Back to Carroll who noted that it was a December final, in the first year of the pandemic.
“That year, with Covid obviously, okay they might have been training earlier in the year individually (but) then they went off and they played the club season first and then they came back into this little shortened window for the inter-county,” said Carroll, pointing to a freshness that Waterford may not ordinarily have had. “And there was no round robin that year, it was straight knock-out.”
Carroll’s discussion with podcast host Colm Parkinson, the former Laois footballer, ended with Parkinson claiming that Waterford were inadvertently “fresh as daisies at the right time of the year” then but that Cahill “still won’t get the memo” to change his approach.
Cahill addressed the issue in a lengthy interview with The Nenagh Guardian’s Shane Brophy last month.
“I know the narrative is out there that Liam Cahill’s teams, ‘he kills them in training and has them flogged to death before the Championship comes around’,” he said. “You cannot help but hear that but the reality of it is, we’ve a lot of professional people. I just don’t arrive to Dr Morris Park and get out of the car and say, ‘Right lads, what will we do tonight?’ This is planned.”
Cahill conceded he got some of his plans wrong last year as Tipp followed up a league semi-final appearance with a rock bottom finish in the Munster round robin. Yet despite all the talk of winter and spring slogging, he actually felt “we hadn’t enough work done” in 2024.
There is no sense of any shift in approach then for 2025. And, clearly, the Tipp hurlers are bouncing off the spring turf again. It just remains to be seen if they can extend that form into summer this year.
Cahill will be banking on capitalising on what appears to be a settled team, powerful in defence, strong in the spinal positions and inspired by the chutzpah of youngsters Darragh McCarthy, Sean Kenneally, Sam O’Farrell, Robert Doyle and Oisin Donoghue.
Answering his own question on Sunday evening, Cahill indicated that it’s business as usual and that he will continue to chase results ahead of the Championship.
“Does it suit Tipperary to reach a league final and win it?” He asked. “It does.”
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GAA Hurling Liam Cahill Tipperary hurling Winter Ready