An intense and hectic season for Tipperary hurlers begins in Portlaoise

Forget the Munster Cup, the real hurling season starts from here with the launch of the National League this weekend. Tipperary head up the motorway this evening, Saturday to Portlaoise and a joust with Cheddar Plunkett’s side. Anything bar an opening win for the visitors will be unacceptable.
So, the preliminaries are over and an intense hurling season kicks off. The timeline ordains that it’s going to be a hectic programme as the first proper split season kicks in. Our league rounds will be completed by March 19, the league final is on April 3, then the Munster championship starts on April 17 with the final on June 5 and the All-Ireland final on July 17. Not much breathing space there, is there? Unless you bow out early, of course.
More than ever, then, building momentum during the league is hugely important this year. If you come off a bad league run there’s little time to regroup for the championship and before you know it your season might be over.
For Tipperary looking ahead to the five league rounds we’d expect to account for Laois and Antrim so the crunch games should be with Kilkenny, Dublin and Waterford. We have the first two at home and travel to Walsh Park for the Waterford game, which will be a dress rehearsal for the first round of the championship.
We sit beside Kilkenny at the top of the all-time league table with 19 wins but our recent record in the competition is very poor. The bulk of our wins came in the fifties and sixties, with pretty meagre pickings in the other decades. Our last win was in 2008 so we’re in something of a league famine at the moment, one that’s second only to the break from 1928 to 1949.
Seamus Callanan is the only survivor from that 2008 league success over Galway so we have a lot of highly-decorated players since then with Munster and All-Ireland medals and All-Star statuettes but no league success. It’s a blemish on the record and I suspect at the end of their careers they’ll reflect ruefully on the absence of a league win.
Of course, no amount of league medals will ever equate to an All-Ireland but the league is still the second most important competition in the sport.
That has become even more pronounced with the devaluing of provincial titles through backdoors and qualifiers, round robins and whatnot. Munster finals are no longer what they used to be.
For Colm Bonnar, in his first year as manager, this league campaign has added importance. The stumble against Kerry in the Munster Cup was unfortunate, so he’ll be extra keen to avoid any repeat here. A steady league run, with signs of progress, is a basic requirement.
In fairness to the new bainisteoir there is a general acceptance that Tipperary are facing a period of rebuilding. Brendan Maher may have been the only retiree from last year but others too are on the wrong side of the hill and will likely play reduced roles this year. Finding successful new talent to reinvigorate the side will be the major challenge.
Our record against Laois over the years is very strong. From 35 previous meetings, Tipperary have 26 wins, 6 losses and 3 draws. The teams last met in the league in 2008 at Cashel, while our last defeat to Queen’s County was way back in 1986 at Thurles.
There will be much interest in the team announcement later this week. The management has to balance the need to introduce and blood new players with the absolute imperative to win. That’s often not an easy balance to strike, though perhaps it will be easier against a team like Laois than the following week against Kilkenny.
We might then expect a mixture this time. with a backbone of experienced performers supplemented by a blend of newer talent. The scope for resting players is certainly limited in the tight schedule of games that lies ahead.
The absence of John Bubbles O’Dwyer from the announced panel some weeks ago is a worry. If it is merely an injury issue, why would he not be still listed on the panel? The unavailability of Niall O’Meara and Bryan O’Mara is a further restriction of options for the management, who really have to find new players who can match-up at this level.
Laois lost to both Wexford and Kilkenny in the recent Walsh Cup. The Wexford game was tight enough before Darragh Egan’s side put some daylight between the teams in the second half. The end margin was eleven points.
The margin was just six points against an experimental Brian Cody team. One senses that Laois made major progress with Eddie Brennan a few years ago but haven’t really built on that since then. Hopefully I’m not choking on those words on Saturday night.

Above: Tommy Dunne has remained as coach to the Tipp senior hurlers, who begin their Allianz National Hurling League campaign against Laois this evening

As expected, Tipperary are red hot favourites to take the points in this game. Actually, we’re second favourites behind Limerick for outright league honours, ahead of Galway, Cork, Kilkenny and Waterford in the listing. Strange indeed.
Oddly enough we’re then listed behind Limerick and Galway for All-Ireland honours, given the same 10/1 odds as Waterford, Kilkenny and Cork. That sounds more realistic to me. Of course, ascribing odds to teams at this stage of the new season means little, given the absence of match evidence.
We have to wait and see what unfolds when league games kick off this weekend.
Meanwhile, the much-maligned water break has finally been consigned to history, in keeping with the general easing of Covid restrictions. Jokingly dubbed the “uisce briste” in some quarters, it aroused much opposition, though I must admit I never really shared in the fuss it generated.
Originally introduced to replace the maor uisce and the sharing of water bottles, it came to be identified with tactical moves by coaches. Paul Kinnerk’s tactics board suddenly emerged from the dressing room onto the sideline and, lo and behold, the same item started appearing at some club games. The tyranny of fashion!
The ending of that nonsense at least is welcome. It certainly fed into this popular notion of hurling as some sort of chess game instead of the spontaneous and chaotic sport that it is. One often sensed that tactics boards were more for optics than any match objective.
Many reporters, I suspect, will miss the water breaks because they did divide games into four neat segments, which could be easily summarised. If a team was on a roll the water break was unwelcome but conversely if you were on the back foot, it was a blessed relief.
Anyway, the water break is gone and hopefully Covid itself is dying with it.
Finally, last year’s west Tipp transfer saga was a major talking point and this year we’re set for more intrigue in the transfer department. I mentioned last week about Conor Whelan’s request to transfer from Carrick Davins to Mullinahone, and we can add to that another contentious development with two players seeking to move from Rosegreen to Boherlahan Dualla.
In the recently-completed U21 hurling championship, Boherlahan availed of the services of Rosegreen’s Brian Óg and Ger O’Dwyer under a gentleman’s agreement and now the brothers have submitted transfer requests to move to the mid club. Understandably Rosegreen aren’t willing to play ball.
It will be interesting to see how this one pans out. The two players are strapping, talented lads, brothers of AFLW star Orla O’Dwyer, who was in the news at the weekend scoring for Brisbane. The O’Dwyers have family links to Boherlahan. Their dad, Brian, was a noted Boherlahan player for many years, including a key role in the 1996 county senior win. Indeed, Orla has played both camogie and ladies football for Boherlahan, though obviously different rules apply in those games.
So how do you reconcile the conflicting interests here? Rosegreen is a small junior club struggling with player numbers, so obviously the loss of two such promising lads would be a major blow. Against that the players have family and, I guess, emotional attachments to Boherlahan, as well as wishing to play at a higher grade than Rosegreen can offer. Brian Óg was on Brendan Cummins’s county U20 panel for a spell before Christmas.
Last year’s transfer saga was interesting in that the players cited irreconcilable differences with their club as the reason for their request. These latest transfers are based on the more usual residency rule.
It’s another tricky one for the County CCC so we await their decision, and whether as a follow-up we’re into more appeals and counter-appeals.
A personal wish in all of this: could the next transfer saga please involve players from way up the county, where I have no links or attachments to either side and can feel more at liberty to comment!

CONFIRMED: Tipperary hurling legend Padraic Maher announces his retirement

Medical grounds cited for the decision