‘YOU’D LOVE TO SEE JUST HOW FAR THIS TEAM COULD GO’
IN a week where bonfire heat was stoked by orange fervour, Liam Kearns knows that some is likely to be coming Tipperary’s way this evening.
This parade south will be also be nourished by a sense of grievance, although Kieran McGeeney will most likely settle for a qualifiers pathway rather than the queen’s highway.
Still Kearns football antennae are telling him there is likely to be trouble brewing for a reason.
In the final round of the League, Tipperary travelled north and were played off the pitch for the bones of 70 minutes before deep in injury time, in the game’s final play, they somehow worked the ball into Michael Quinlivan’s hands.
By the time the All-Star full-forward was finished with the ball, their worlds had flip-flopped; Tipperary were a wide-eyed Division 2 team and Armagh were a bemused and still very much a Division 3 side.
‘They were absolutely mugged in the Athletic Grounds,’ confesses Kearns, the former garda in him demanding that the result be framed in the language of a crime scene.
‘It was smash and grab; they were the better team all the way through and we stole the game at the death and you have got to say that they were the better team.
‘We played them in a challenge game since in Johnstown Bridge and they hammered us.
‘They won’t be the slightest bit worried about playing us and they will see this as an opportunity to get revenge. On that basis alone, they will be very dangerous.’
That may well be the case, but Armagh should know that making the most of out of adversity is what has defined Kearns’ two years in charge of Tipperary.
He inherited a team that were freshly shorn of their headline talent as Colin O’Riordan headed to the AFL and Steven O’Brien obtained a visa to a closer-to-home land of opportunity, Michael Ryan’s hurlers.
He would also lose a handful of his best players to the lure of summer time in the United States and yet from there he would take Tipperary to a place they had not been in 81 years, the All-Ireland semi-final.
This year it has been much of the same. Promotion was achieved in the absence of key players, which were compounded by a 12-week suspension of his All-Star ankle injury goalkeeper Evan Comerford, and an ankle injury to his All-Star full-forward Quinlivan.
He lost Tipperary’s other AllStar nominee Peter Acheson to the Dubai sun, while there have been times he has felt like he has been managing an A&E department and not a football team. He started the year with six full-backs and only one of them was on the field at the end of last weekend’s game against Cavan.
match pretty much summed them up; his weakened team looked dead at half-time, trailing by double scores (0-6 to 0-12) on the road against a team that spent the spring in Division 1 and yet by the end they were the ones standto ing. ‘Over the two years we have had many great wins but that one is right up there,’ Kearns adds.
‘We took over the game in the second half and dominated completely and that was the only way we were going to win it and to be fair to the players that is what they decided to do. It was a massive effort.
‘They have huge belief and a huge commitment to each other and we have a great commitment and no matter how bad things are they will keep fighting for each other. We are playing to a good system, they believe in the game plan and when you have heart and guts, it is a good combination and it makes you difficult to beat.’
They are all of that, but even when they are beaten it is their capacity to get back up and go again that marvels.
They travelled to Cork bare to the bone and still led by two points going into the final minute before they were sucker-punched by a late goal.
That could have killed them but instead Kearns chose to see the bright side.
‘We felt that we were in such bad shape that we would have been in no position to challenge Kerry because to compete with them you need to have everything right.
‘The second thing is we had a month off and it was not so hard lift them mentally because we were over losing the game in a week or two so we were good to go again.’
And the time brought them some relief. While there may be no way back for some — Ciaran McDon- ald’s career may be at an end owing to a hip issue — Philip Austin’s problematic groin injury that sidelined him for four months calmed in the interim and he was good to make a match-changing contribution from the bench against Cavan.
Quinlivan’s recuperation timeline was seven weeks, but, even though still restricted, he still managed 20 minutes last week.
That sums up their hearts and guts, but those qualities have been stress-tested like they could not have imagined.
Comerford is more than a goalkeeper, he proved last year to be a play-maker such are his restart skills, but he was hit with a 12week ban for a ‘minor physical interference of a referee’ raising questions as to whether the rule book would have been thrown as hard had he kept goal for the hurlers.
Kearns will not be drawn on that, but believes that there is a better way.
‘It was his first time ever being sent-off; he barely touched the refThat
THEY WON’T BE THE SLIGHTEST BIT WORRIED ABOUT PLAYING US AGAIN IT IS THEIR CAPACITY TO GET BACK UP AND GO AGAIN THAT MARVELS THE PLAYERS ARE SHOWING THEY CAN COMPETE WITH THE BEST
eree but that was the sending-off offence and he gets 12 weeks.
‘But I don’t think the county team should suffer because of that happened with his club and I would argue that should also work the other way, his club should not suffer if he got sent off playing for us.
‘We need separation here and the whole thing of banning a player for 12 weeks is too draconian.
‘There should also be a mercy committee in place where if you get 12 weeks, extenuating circumstances such as a player’s unblemished record should be taken into account and each case should be taken on its merits.’
The wonder is what Tipperary might achieve if Kearns could get all his best players together for one season.
If O’Brien threw away the sticks, O’Riordan and Acheson took some shelter from the sun, Comerford was not imprisoned by a ban and the rest were all healthy.
Kearns, though, does not waste too much time thinking about that.
‘If all of the pieces of the jigsaw came together you would love to see where this team could go but It does not always work out that if you had them all that they would be as good a team.
‘Anything is possible for this team and in fairness to the players that are there, they are showing that they can compete with the best out there,’ says Kerins, who will review his position when his two-year concludes this summer.
‘I will take a step back, think about it and talk to all the stakeholders and see what is best,’ he says.
But for now there will be no stepping back, only stepping out once again.
After all, they are on a march of their own.