Tipperary hurling manager Liam Cahill will continue to give young players their chance

Tipperary senior hurling manager Liam Cahill says that he will continue to introduce new players to the panel and give players their championship debuts.

“Last year we made significant gains very quickly and obviously it didn’t end the way we would like it to have, with defeats to Waterford and Galway towards the end of the championship,” says the Ballingarry man.

“But people can’t forget that we had ten, eleven championship debutants last year. That’s a lot of players. I don’t think that has been done in Tipperary or any county in the last decade and we’ll continue to do that, because my job is obviously to deliver silverware.

"But I need to future-proof this thing going forward as well for whoever comes along after Liam Cahill.

“That’s the way it should operate, and I need to do that and we will continue to do that.

“If numbers are big on our panel we’ll make sure that we give everybody a chance to get their opportunity to play for Tipperary”.

The manager was speaking after his team were beaten by Waterford in last Sunday’s Co-Op Superstores Munster Hurling League game in Dungarvan. Tipp played for 50 minutes (including additional time) with 14 players after Robert Byrne was sent off in the first half.

They were nine points down ten minutes into the second half but responded well to take the lead, before conceding three late points that secured the win for Waterford.

Liam Cahill said, “I’m happy with the workout, really happy with the courage and commitment and the real never-give-up attitude of the players there today.

Good workout for the starting fifteen

“It was always going to be a tough day for the guys who started. We had a lot of players who were new to the panel. It was a tough assignment coming down here, Waterford had six or seven players who had championship experience in their starting fifteen.

“It was a good workout for those players who started today. I don’t want to pick out any one individual in particular. I thought there were a number of players who put their hand up today to show that they have something to offer our overall squad and that was the whole objective of today, to make sure that we get positives out of it, and that we have a lot of players to strengthen our squad.

“We know that we’ll need to rotate our squad during that intense period of the Munster championship in the summer.

“These guys are training really well and they’re good lads. They’re really committed to what’s required and they have to be, because inter-county senior hurling is serious-going in your preparation and this month of January will be heavy (training) for all teams around our volume of work and getting the work into the legs and the lungs.

“Performances might not be where they need to be over the months of January and February and into the league, but this year we really have our eyes set on the first round of the Munster championship (against Limerick at TUS Gaelic Grounds on April 28), that’s our main goal”.

He offered this view on Robert Byrne’s dismissal - “It’s always that bit more difficult when you go down to fourteen players. It was a 50-50 decision really, in my eyes. I know Robert was committed to the pull and the Waterford player (Jack Prendergast) slipped in and slipped the ball away. There was contact, I probably have no real argument with the colour of the card but I don’t think there was any great intent, to be fair to Robert Byrne, in that incident.

“The incident with Michael Breen and Michael Kiely just before half time, I think the referee (Simon Stokes) got that right as well. It was a free and from where I’m standing the hurley came back and contact was made with Mikey Breen. If there was contact made and there was a striking action it probably warranted something a little bit stronger but the referee did what was right, he consulted his umpires and distributed yellow cards.

“We must remember as well, this is a pre-season competition for players and the referee today, it was his first step-up into inter-county senior hurling as well, so we have to be fair in that regard. Everybody is starting out at the start of a new year.

"Simon Stokes is stepping up into proper inter-county hurling and he needs time, just like players do, to adjust and he will need matches as much as the players.

“There was a big shift in mindset at half time and that was proven in the second half to bring it back from nine points, and we were unlucky not to get something out of the game in the end”.