When Tipperary lost their last League game to Westmeath to round out a winless campaign, manager David Power fielded just three players from the 2020 Munster Championship winning side.
It’s been a difficult two and a half years or so for them since that momentous victory over Cork on a poignant weekend that marked the centenary of Bloody Sunday, Tipp football’s, and indeed the GAA’s, darkest day.
In the meantime, they’ve now been relegated to Division Four twice, their only Championship win has come against Waterford while Carlow knocked them out in the first round of last year’s Tailteann Cup.
But, while they will be expected to beat Waterford once again on Sunday to set up a Munster semi-final against Kerry, Power is realistic and has set his sights very much on the Tailteann Cup.
His panel has been decimated over the past couple of years by defections, retirements and injuries, though some of them are starting clear up, fuelling Power’s optimism that they may be able to put something together in the second tier competition.
“We want to have a right rattle off the Tailteann Cup because we feel even with the performances, and the fact that we were relegated, we feel that we can be very competitive once we have the five, six, seven players back,” he says.
“Our first aim is to get a win against Waterford and obviously then we have a daunting task down to Kerry but, look, we’ll obviously prepare for that too if it happens but, really, our big aim for the summer is having a good rattle off the Tailteann Cup.
“If we were in Sam we wouldn't be able to compete in Sam Maguire at this moment in time whereas if we were talking three years ago I’d be saying we would be able to compete in Sam Maguire.
“You have to be honest and realistic and where we are at at the minute, we are best placed to probably be in the Tailteann Cup and that’s the reality of it.”
The 2020 team was built around a core of players that had been successful at underage level, where Tipp regularly beat Cork and Kerry, but that hasn’t happened for quite some time now and so a high level of player turnover was never going to be sustainable.
“Even Dublin, Kerry, could really sustain that because you’re missing serious players,” says Power. “Two of them are going to be playing with New York on Saturday. You just can’t really sustain those losses.”
What makes the fall-off all the more frustrating is the age profile of that team was quite healthy and there was no obvious reason for the group to break-up to such a degree.
“It is very, very tough to take. Obviously 2020 was my first season and I was hoping that we could grow and be challenging maybe in a higher division in the League and maybe going back at it and maybe challenging again for a Munster Championship but unfortunately, look, we’re not in that position. And it’s for various reasons.
“Lads have gone travelling, lads are working, there’s been retirements. Brian Fox, Philip Austin, they’ve all been savage leaders and to lose all them on top of the fellas that are not available to us at the minute, it’s very, very hard to take.”
The fact that pandemic restrictions were very much in place in November 2020 meant that the success couldn’t be milked for all it was worth and the potential to leave a lasting legacy largely diminished.
“The biggest issue there was we weren’t able to go around with the cup to the schools. I think if we were able to go around with the cup to the schools, that would have been massive. I think we definitely lost out on that there.
“Now, you still see a load of green and white jerseys with young fellas wearing them but I suppose the fact that we’re not going well at the moment, yeah, it’s not having the effect that it should have.”
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