07-07-2025
Back from the brink - how Liam Cahill sparked a revival in Tipp hurling
We'll start with the question about Liam Cahill's future because that is where the Tipp revival started too.
In the windowless corridor underneath the main stand at Semple Stadium, only minutes had passed since Tipp's 2024 Championship had ended.
Their record, one draw and three defeats, was appalling; the 15-point slaughter by Limerick and 18-point hammering by Cork accentuating the negative gloom that hung over the team.
'Are you considering your future?' Cahill was asked.
His answer was defiant. No, he would not go, he said. And yes, the team could turn a corner.
But no one really believed him until they met Clare again in the Championship this summer. Before then, the only certainty in hurling was that the Tipp Munster Championship campaign was going to be a misery, just as it had been in every other year of this decade.
Then over the course of eight days in May, Tipp beat Clare and Waterford, getting as many Munster victories in a week as they had in the previous five seasons.
A year earlier Cahill had been forced to talk about Tipp's good name 'being on the line'.
Significantly, though, the one thing that wasn't on the line was his job - which he knew was safe.
And now that the story of Tipp's revival can be told, we need to remember that. Jittery county boards would have shown Cahill the door. Tipp's board, however, had faith. Fourteen months on, they have been vindicated.
For a county like Tipperary, anything less than an All-Ireland is deemed unsatisfactory. Yet they got used to unsatisfactory years after winning their 28th Championship in 2019.
But there was a significant difference between Cahill finishing bottom in 2024 with Michael Ryan and Bonnar's failures in Munster in 2018 and 2022.
First were the circumstances. By the time Cahill had been lured from Waterford in 2023, it was clear that a period of transition was required.
He had lost or was losing Brendan Maher, Padraic Maher and Seamus Callanan - three of Tipp's finest ever players. Then there was the injury to Seamus Kennedy and the persistent doubt about Cathal Barrett.
Come his second season only three starters from the 2019 All-Ireland winning team were making his starting XV.
Yet Cahill had signalled the change that was needed and had a plan in place to counteract it.
In three seasons, he handed out inter-county debuts to 13 players who made up his panel on Sunday, the county board sold on his rebuilding policy and as dependent on its success as the manager was.
Because, we must remember, they were the ones who went after him as early as 2022.
So, they knew they had to stick by their man, because the player-heave on Bonnar wasn't a good look. The optics behind a second manager in three years getting the heave-ho would have been disastrous.
What helped was the fact they could see the Cahill blueprint would benefit Tipp down the line. It just so happened that success came quicker than anyone expected.
Tipp were in a mess when Cahill arrived and appeared to be in an even worse state last summer.
But he stuck by his new kids on the block. Five of keeper Rhys Skelly's nine Championship appearances have come this summer.
And it wasn't the only inspired decision made by the manager. Cahill handed Robert Doyle his Championship debut this year, the corner back making the last minute goal line clearance from John Donnelly to see Tipp secure their All-Ireland place.
Another 2025 debutant is Darragh McCarthy, scorer of 0-31 in the Championship prior to Sunday, scorer of a vital first-half goal against the Cats.
But trumping Doyle, McCarthy, Skelly on Sunday was supersub Oisin O'Donoghue who now has 3-2 from play in this year's Championship, including Sunday's match-winning goal.
All in, there have been five debutants this summer, 14 in the three seasons Cahill has been in charge.
He said: "To go after a little element of culture, the key was to get the right players in the dressing room that would embrace that. I think now that we have a mix of a number of younger players with the real, real, genuine, more experienced cohort, it's a lovely, lovely balance."
Among them are a trio of their U-20 team that landed a Munster title this year.
"They bring no fear because they have no baggage," said Cahill of the younger players in his squad. "They come in to a set-up where they're just absolutely mad eager.'
Their enthusiasm paid off on Sunday.
Bryan O'Mara and Michael Breen made the same point on Sunday, how they had to endure plenty of soul-searching over the winter.
Three defeats and a draw does that to a team.
But it was actually a Tipp victory - by their minors in last year's All-Ireland which really shocked their senior team into action.
For here were 16-and-17-year-olds had been willing to "fight on their backs," to win a 22nd All-Ireland minor title against Kilkenny at Nowlan Park - despite being reduced to 13 players.
"I was down in Nowlan Park myself that day and there's no point in saying it, we were embarrassed walking out," said Jake Morris in May.
"In terms of being a good battling Tipperary team, that never-say-die attitude was inspiring. We thought about it with regard to ourselves.
"You never mind losing a game as long as you've shown up and you've performed and you've fought on your back and you can come away together on the bus afterwards and you can look at each other.
"The manner of some of the defeats last year wasn't acceptable. Players are in the trenches. You have to go to work, you can't hide away. We were in the trenches after last year. We had to deal with it face on and take our constructive criticism and move on and look in the mirror.'
Last night they couldn't stand the image of their reflection.
This morning they can.
Pride has been restored.
