Mission accomplished and now the dream goes on for Tipperary’s heroic footballers

In our football preview last week we dared to dream that Tipperary could end an 85-year exile and return from Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday last with the Munster title following victory over Cork. This week we joyfully record that that gap, extending all the way back to 1935, has finally been bridged and the disappointment of generations of Tipp football followers has finally been put to bed.

Sunday’s incredible victory in Cork’s own backyard was a day that will forever rank up there amongst the very best in Tipperary sporting history and the heroes who achieved it now possess a badge of honour that they will carry with them for the rest of their days and beyond, such was the magnitude of their achievements.

In hopeful anticipation of Sunday’s final we looked to the heavenly stars above and convinced ourselves that  everything in the sky was aligned - the Bloody Sunday commemoration, an exact century since our last senior All-Ireland win, a special jersey for the day and even the return of our own Australis Borealis, Colin O’Riordan, via his club, Killea.

But of course, none of that was actually going to win any Munster final for anyone, even if some of the above were somewhat catalytic.

Last week Tipperary manager David Power spoke about the one thing above all else that would give Tipperary their best chance - he spoke of “performance.”

Now no longer just the manager of an All-Ireland winning minor team, the Kilsheelan/Kilcash clubman said “hopefully we’ll be leaving (Páirc Uí Chaoimh) having given our best and with the cup in hand also.”

Conal Kennedy, the youngest of the three brothers on the Tipperary squad, put in a very solid 70 minutes of effort which helped Tipperary capture their first Munster senior football title since 1935.

On Sunday last David Power and captain Conor Sweeney  got that desired performance - far and beyond anything Tipp have produced in quite some time. In taking the game to Cork, Tipp led all the way  except for about  60 seconds in the first half when The Rebels might have felt normal service had resumed having trailed by three  after four minutes.

Not this time. No, definitely not this time.

Characteristics which Tipperary have shown in recent games such as commitment, grit, workrate, determination and a never-say-die attitude when headed (by Leitrim and Limerick in league and championship games in recent weeks) are admirable in any team. Secure in the knowledge that the team had all those traits to call upon, what had been missing was the latent top level performance for the full seventy minutes. David Power knew full well that if Tipp could unleash that then they were in with a right chance of making their own piece of history.

On Sunday Tipp got it as right as they could have, producing “serious good football” according to the  manager afterwards.

But of course it was much more that that.

It was a total team effort. It was body-on-the line, heart and soul effort, non-stop workrate and total commitment from the starting 15 and five subs that was needed and was provided, in spades. It was a never-say-die attitude of real men wearing white and green on a weekend when they honoured a fallen comrade in arms who also wore white and green. It was Tipperary football at its finest, an 85-year multi-generational wait ended. It was the stuff of boyhood dreams. It was history. It was Tipperary football history.

These past 12 months have been one crazy upside down year for everyone, dominated by a world pandemic that -  amongst many other  far more serious changes - has us now playing out our “summer championships” in the depths of November and December. In these uncertain times who knows anything for sure anymore?

When the national football league resumed in October Tipperary needed two wins to avoid dropping down to Division 4. Insanely, six weeks later we now need two wins to lift Sam Maguire in 2020. This week, thanks to Sunday’s heroes, we can still dare to dream - at least for another while! And why not?

Tiobraid Árann abú.