Liam Cahill says he has the full support of the Tipperary players and the county board

Liam Cahill has dismissed any speculation regarding his future as Tipperary senior hurling manager. 

“I’m appointed for a three-year term, I’ve no doubt about that, possibly with a one-year extension. I’ve the full support of the county board, they’re 100 percent behind me, and what’s paramount to me and my management team is I have 100 percent support of those players next door,” he has stated.

“We’ll definitely look at going at this as hard as we can from next October, when it comes around again, and fulfil my three-year term, and make sure that we keep trying to put Tipperary back to the top table”.

He was speaking after Sunday’s final group game in the Munster championship, when his team was beaten by Clare by four points, which meant that they had failed to win any of their four games and picked up just one point from their provincial campaign. 

When asked why his team had come up short this year, he said “It's consistency, number one, that’s the big thing. There would have been areas of our play at times that we practised in training that didn’t come out onto the field, and that’s something that we have to look at.

“It’s very hard to build a good game plan which a lot of you guys feel we’re without at the moment, that’s fair enough.

“We have to go back to our principles of being prepared to really run hard and work hard, and get that bit more physical in our style and brand of play. I think when that comes our gamestyle will come with it”.

With Clare eight points ahead at the three-quarter mark of Sunday’s game at FBD Semple Stadium, and a danger that his side would suffer another heavy defeat, what encouragement did he take from his players' response in the last 20 minutes?

“Tipperary players shouldn’t be spooked or fazed by the likes of that. I know it happened previously in this championship, but again we’ve learned from it and discussed it and done our utmost to improve on that. That resilience has come into these guys and it’s going to come more.

“There are a lot of younger players out there again, and there are a good few young players on our extended panel that had a good exposure to training and pre-season in the league.

“It’s that Tipperary heart, we know it’s there, we just have to find it more consistently.   

“We're disappointed we didn’t get something from the game, that's what we try to do every day we come out to play for Tipperary. We believe we’re capable of winning and obviously we didn’t today. But where we’ve come from, from the commencement of this championship to where we are today is a small little bit of relief in a way that we tried our utmost today to put a little bit more pride back into the Tipperary jersey and in our supporters versus our performance (against Cork) seven days ago.

“The lads stuck with Clare to the very end, and that’s the quality of players we have. They committed to really hanging in there today, and I’m very happy, very proud of them in that regard.

“We just know our performances to date have us where we are, and that’s at the bottom of the table. But I think on today’s evidence and on the evidence of during the week with our superb minor and Under 20 teams, and with the work that underage games are doing, and the work that James Woodlock (minor manager) and Brendan Cummins (Under 21 manager) are doing, that it’s not all-out despair in Tipperary. 

“I think it’s time for calm heads and cool heads to put things into perspective and really build on what has been a difficult week and a difficult championship for our flagship team, and a really positive one from a development point of view, from what’s coming behind us.

“At the start of the year it’s a lot easier to manage expectations than it is to manage disappointment and I, unfortunately through this campaign, myself, Mikey, Declan and TJ (his backroom team), we’re just managing disappointment more so than expectation, which is always that little bit extra difficult. 

“But we’ve managed it, we’ve done our best to row in behind the lads and the players have been absolutely superb with us. They’ve committed to us in everything we’ve asked of them. That’s not new to me, I knew that would happen anyway, and we just have to keep trying to improve”.

When asked about the futures of Noel McGrath and Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher, two of the longest-service players in the team, Liam Cahill said “they’ve put in some service for Tipperary and that will be their decision (whether they continue or not). 

“I think this current management team has been really respectful towards that group of players and rightly so. And we will continue to do that. We will have honest conversations like we always do, and we’ll come up with whatever works for both parties. 

“It has been a disappointing championship. You set out at the start of the championship to be in the shake-up, to be in the last two. We had two difficult away assignments, the Limerick game didn’t go the way we planned, obviously, we really dug deep to get something out of Walsh Park, and we hurled reasonably well here last weekend (against Cork) for long periods.

“It’s just a case of reviewing it, going back, looking at it and putting our minds around bringing real consistency to our game for next year.

“It was a tough week for Tipperary in the last seven days, and I said it after the Cork game, that’s what happens when you take on a role of this magnitude, and we know our performances haven’t been where they need to be. 

“But we will get better, that’s all our objective is to get better”.