Quote-UnquoteFeatures
1960s Tipperary team.
Justin McCarthy – Cork Examiner Interview, July 1985. The game referred to was the 1985 Munster Hurling Final when – to put it mildly - Tipperary’s physical tactics didn’t meet with the Cork coach’s approval.
“In the talk before the game I spoke about the ‘50s, which I barely remember, and the ‘60s. I think 70 per cent of Tipperary’s wins back then were physical. The aim was getting the man out of the game, hitting him, putting him off, jolting him. And the other 30 per cent was hurling.
Justin McCarthy – “Hooked” his autobiography – 2001
“I will admit one thing. I was wrong in my percentages. That Tipp team of the ‘60s was the best I’ve ever seen. To say that 70 per cent of their wins was based on their physical approach was based on their physical approach and the other 30 per cent could be attributed to their hurling was a hasty, top-of-the –head remark.
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“The Tipperary team which I was part of when I became an adult hurler was not perfect, but it was as close as any team I have been involved with or seen in my years in the game. The greatest fault of all was that we did not win even more, that our domination of hurling during the ‘60s was not complete.
As individuals they were huge in their own right. You needed to be a strong character to survive. Looking at what the individuals achieved later in life shows the kind of men they were. Wall became a Brigadier General, second in command of the Irish Army. Mick Maher became a senior administrator in the GAA and should have become President. Larry Kiely went on to become a successful international showjumper. They knew exactly what they wanted and went after it. The confidence was extraordinarily high. They were a team of thinkers and they had outstanding discipline. Coming into that Tipperary team at the end of 1963 was like being signed for Manchester United. They were big stars, big men and great hurlers. We had a Rolls Royce of a hurling team”.
Justin McCarthy – “Hooked” his autobiography – 2001.
“That Tipp team were as much a machine as the great Kerry football team of Sheehy, O’Shea and Spillane ever were. They too seemed relentless, invincible, overwhelming. It is little wonder ; they had so many good players. John O’Donoghue was a great goalkeeper. You couldn’t get through their full-back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey; if you tried, they’d just put the hurley up to your chest and muscle you away. Wall was a colossus at centre-back, while either side of him, Len Gaynor and Mick Burns were solidity personified. English was an exceptional midfield player. Alongside him was Roche, possibly the best all-round player of his generation. Jimmy Doyle was possibly the best forward of his – and one of the top three of any. Babs could be unstoppable on his day. And then you had Devaney, Nealon, McLoughlin, Ryan. If it wasn’t one fella killing you, it was another. They had options all over the place. And yet they were better than the sum of their parts. They could move the ball in any direction because they could all read each other’s play. They were strong mentally and physically, individually and collectively. They were like………Godzilla”.
Eddie Keher’s Hurling Life – 1978
“They were one of the most outstanding teams I have seen playing. They had fifteen good players and they combined very well. They did a lot of switching of positions; they were a versatile team that could move around. In defence they were very strong : you had John Doyle, Mick Maher, and Kieran Carey in the full-back line. In the forwards you had Jimmy Doyle, Babs Keating, Donie Nealon, Liam Devaney and players of this calibre and in midfield you had two great hurlers ; Theo English and Mick Roche, and their work together with that of the backs and forwards was an unbeatable combination”.
Jimmy Smyth – legendary Clare hurler – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“I am convinced that the greatest team of all times was the Tipperary team of 1961, 1962, and 1964”.
Eamon Cregan – Limerick hurler and manager – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“In 1958 I saw the start of the best team I ever saw or played against and that was Tipperary. I played against that famous Tipperary team, and it was a great team. I didn’t fancy too much their full-back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey so I generally kept out of the way”.
Tipperary 1989/91 Team
Kevin Cashman waxes lyrical about the style of the Tipperary team under “Babs” – Sunday Tribune June 10th 1990, while also – perhaps uniquely among national journalists of the the time - seeing through the motivation and inaccuracy of much of the criticism of John Denton, the Wexford referee of the 1989 All-Ireland semi-final between Tipp and Galway .
“We can be, and we very often are, a contrary and capricious and captious people. We get style from Tipperary and about half of us say “Tipp are no good”. We get blunt basicity from Jack’s Braves and the same half of us say “Jack’s lot have no style”.
That half of the populace seemingly cannot grasp the imperative that you play, as Jack does, with what you have. And mere spectators and hacks, if they have a titter of wit and feeling, give thanks and respect for whatever is achieved. Take for – possibly the best – example Cork’s All-Ireland winners of 1966: nobody will ever ascribe to them the elegant accomplishment which, the aged say, distinguished their predecessors of 1944 and, we all know, their successors of 1984 and just randomly – the Galway team which threw away the final of ’79. Perhaps the decriers should demand that those Cork players of ’66 hand over those medals to the Galway men of ’79, and that, on 9 July, Jack’s Braves hand over their medals to, say, the French or Brazilians of ’82 or ’86.
The rest of us are happy to have lived to see the beauty of these football teams, and sensible enough to have seen and to remember how their own deficiencies thwarted them. And happier to acknowledge the abundance of beautiful hurling given us by Tipperary since June ‘1987. And sensible enough, again, to perceive that Tipp now have fewer frailties than almost any champions of the past quarter century.
In the spate of bitterness and recrimination – and ruffianly detraction of John Denton – before, during, and after last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, the one true and good thing inside that whole horrible episode was ignored and forgotten. In the first twenty minutes of the “game” Tipp played hurling that came within about five narrow wides of perfection The mood of Croke Park – rather akin, one suspects to a Mississippi lynching, or a Nuremburg book burning – soon polluted and halted that excellent demonstration of excellence. But anyone wanting to discover or exhibit the awesomeness and purity of great hurling need look no further than her or his videotape of that twenty minutes.
When you hear, as unfortunates condemned to read letters to the Sports Editor of this newspaper do all the time, “hurling is a simple game” you know it is time to drain your glass and move on. The austerity of Declan Ryan’s and Conal Bonnar’s stickwork is not simple; it is pure, as is the cadenced symmetry of Declan Carr’s and Michael Cleary’s and Nickolas English’s stickwork. Nor simple was the genius and dedication by which Keating and Co. discovered and disciplined a whole new panel in the few months between the disaster of Ennis ’86 and the ecstasy of Killarney ’87.
General views of Tipperary
Eddie Keher’s Hurling Life – 1978
“There was an intense rivalry between the counties, particularly on the border areas between the counties, and although we were “deadly enemies” on the hurling field, I always had a love of Tipperary, their hurling, the Tipperary followers’ attitude to the game, their authoritative reading of the game and assessment of players”.
Peter Finnerty – at a Galway function in New York 2001 – as reported in the Sunday Tribune.
“Hurling’s a great game, it’s just a pity Tipperary play it”.
Eamon Grimes (Limerick’s 1973 Captain) – referring to the 1973 Munster Final V Tipp, and the possibility of a “divine right”.
“That match was far, far tougher than the All-Ireland. You could cut the tension with a knife. Tipperary think they are the only ones with the God-given right to be in an All-Ireland. “
Kevin Cashman – 1991 Munster Hurling Final programme article.
“To play Tipperary : outsiders will never understand, nor experience, the tremor in the blood that simple phrase brings on. Titles and trophies matter – and All Stars matter just a little – but where Cork stand vis-à-vis Tipperary is the only measure that really matters”.
“The rivalry is as ancient and prideful, yet it lacks the bitterness of the Tipp-Kilkenny rivalry”.
Nicky English – Interview with Premierview – December 2001.
“I think it is just as important to have the Tipperary supporters prepared going into a game as it is the players. Traditionally the days Tipperary go into a game expecting a big win are the days when they are most vulnerable”.
Nicky English
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“It is the hardest thing in the world to convince Tipperary people to accept him as one of the great stars, to convince them how good he really was. For those of us who were in Thurles when he was training, each and every player, it was a privilege to be able to appreciate his talent from close quarters. There was one ingredient he never got any credit for and that was his courage. He was very unfortunate with injuries, genuine injuries. He was a great team man. I will never forget the All-Ireland Final in 1989. He had Antrim beaten and then offered to come off to allow a sub to come on and get a run. Here he was, having a fantastic year, about to win an All-Ireland and become Hurler of the Year and he was thinking of others. He is a very decent, generous and gifted individual. Other corner-forwards might have had the skill, the scoring instinct, but they didn’t have his courage. He would do things others would not even dare. When he was fully fit no one could ever get near him. He had an option for every ball that came in”.
Captaincy controversy of 1988 All-Ireland Final
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“Choosing the team was not difficult. There wasn’t room for O’Neill. It was a collective decision. We knew there would be a problem, but felt that Cappawhite would accept the situation and would nominate someone else as captain. That would almost certainly be English because he was also from the west of the county. That suited us as well. Nicky was in brilliant form and well able for leadership. All sorts of stories did the rounds, including one that I and the Supporters Club didn’t think that O’Neill projected the right image for Tipperary hurling because his speech after the League final wasn’t great. That was so utterly stupid it was hard to credit that anyone would say it. Imagine myself, Donie or Theo even considering such a thing. We left him off the team because we believed there was someone else who could do a better job. I got one letter from the parish priest in Cappawhite saying that I had slighted the people and the place. A schoolteacher condemned me for my actions. The resentment was deep and I was badly affected by it all. Did these people really have the interests of Tipperary at heart ? Not as far as I was concerned. They didn’t even have Pa O’Neill’s interests at heart. He should have been spared the controversy by the people who were claiming to be giving him their support”.
Nicky English – “Beyond the Tunnel” his autobiography – 1996.
“It was said by some that I engineered my way to the captaincy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We all felt Pa might be under pressure to hold his place and I would have had absolutely no problem if the job was given to any other West Tipp man (God knows there was enough of us on the team). I remember saying to Pa, “Jesus, I’m sorry” when the team was named. To be fair to him, he was good about it. At no point did he begin to sulk or start looking daggers in my direction. Unfortunately, not everyone proved so generous towards me. A lot of mischief was put about, suggesting that Tipp wanted their flash boy up collecting the cup, that they wanted to turn it into a total media circus. Now it goes without saying that I wasn’t exactly unhappy about being captain. I think – in Tipperary – it’s every school kid’s dream to be collecting the McCarthy Cup on the first Sunday in September. And I was no exception. But clearly these were not the ideal circumstances in which to be given the captaincy, not when the repercussions almost threaten to over-shadow the game. As All-Ireland final week evolved, it got worse and worse. I got anonymous phone calls at home, I got anonymous letters. An Post came up with special Galway and Tipperary postcards and, while I got hundreds and hundreds from well-wishers, I got a few abusive ones too”.
Jimmy Doyle
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“He was the classiest hurler I ever saw. When it came to real skill he was the Ballesteros of hurling, he had all the shots. He was the complete hurler when it came to shots. He had shots no one else had, he used his hands like no one else could. He saw things that the rest of us would never see. He had great understanding as well as vision. He played the game differently. He was always thinking a few shots ahead”.
Babs Keating
Pat Hartigan – Hurling Heroes – 2000. Limerick’s legendary full-back recounts a confrontation with Babs Keating during the 1971 National League Final which Limerick won by 3-12 to 3-11.
“He remembers marking Babs Keating in that final, and before the ball was thrown in, he said to Babs, “I suppose you have a bet on this game, or a bet on how much you’ll score on me today. We’ll see before this game is over”. As the world knows Babs liked to have bet, but Pat felt immediately that his remark was very immature and said in the tension of the occasion. They had a tough game, but afterwards, Babs came over to congratulate Hartigan and made a remark that stung Pat deeply : “I hope that you’ll be a better sportsman the next time we meet”.
John Doyle
Padraig Puirseal – Long-standing Irish Press GAA Correspondent choosing his best 15 hurlers 1930-’77.
“In the left-corner there was just no alternative to John Doyle from Tipperary though he switched to the right in his later years. There were those who felt that John was a man of hurling brawn rather than hurling brains. Don’t kid yourself. Anyone who saw the strong man from Holycross in his half-back years will confirm that he was a hurler who was master of all the skills”.
Jimmy Smyth – legendary Clare hurler – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“When I entered the arena in 1951 my opponent was John Doyle, Tipperary, now holder of eight All-Ireland medals, all won on the field of play. He was a rollicking, flamboyant, unrelenting defender giving no quarter but always playing within the bounds of christian charity and the rules of the game. In the early ‘50s and ‘60s, no forward was ever baptised properly without the proper laying of hands by Tipperary”.
Paddy Downey – “Our Games” – 1966 – He is referring to John Doyle equalling Christy Ring’s record of 8 All-Ireland senior medals.
“If anyone is hurling deserved to join Ring on the magical pinnacle of fame, that man is John Doyle of Holycross. Not only for the splendid service that he has given to the game and to his county or so long, but because in hurling as well as in mien he typifies our concept of the archetypal Tipperary hurler. The advertising men, if they had anything to do with it, would call it “brand image”. Hurling men might not recognise it by that name; yet it conveys rather neatly the quality that is part of Tipperary’s hurling tradition. It is a quality of style that is intrinsically a part of the man; the rugged power, the sweeping stroke, the touch of dare-devilry, perhaps ; and certainly the cold courage. The image was fathered by Kickham’s mythical Matt the Thresher. Tipperary has always had someone – many times more than one – to fill the role. For seventeen years, and to this day, they have had John Doyle, who more than any other player of this generation, personifies that traditional image of Tipperary hurling and hurling men”.
Mick Roche
Padraig Puirseal – Long-standing Irish Press GAA Correspondent choosing his best 15 hurlers 1930-’77.
“I gave the centre-back position to Mick Roche, a man who, when the mood was on him shared with Bobby Rackard the remarkable facility of playing stylish hurling under the fiercest pressures”.
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“Without question my good friend Mick Roche was the best hurler I ever saw. He was the best for many reasons. You could argue that Ring was the best corner-forward, Wall was the best centre-back, Reddan or Walsh was the best goalkeeper. But Roche could play at centrefield, centre back, or in the forwards and he was brilliant in every position”.
Ger Loughnane – Hurling Heroes – 2000. Ger recounts his memory of the 1971 Munster Hurling Final when after the Minor game in which he played he viewed the senior game from the sideline in Killarney.
It was such a thrill to be so near to the action, and Ger will never forget the display of Mick Roche that day . Mick was Ger’s boyhood hero. “Mick always seemed to be playing at his ease when everyone else was flailing around”, he said. “The Tipperary man would just glide out of the ruck with the ball and send a lovely long clearance down the field”.
Tony Doran – Hurling Heroes – 2000. The comment which follows not a direct quote from Tony but instead the words of the book’s author Eddie Keher.
“We talked about great players that he played on, and he had no hesitation in saying that Mick Roche of Tipperary was the finest hurler he had seen”.
Thurles Sarsfields
Raymond Smith – Book of Hurling - 1974.
“The Sarsfields had in the ‘50s and ‘60s a team of all talents when they seemed to make the county title their own special property and we began to wonder if real competition would ever again return to the championship. Tommy Doyle…..Mickey Byrne…..Bobby Mokler…the Keanes, Larry, Connie, Michael (“Blackie”)……the Murphys, Noel and Michael……Jimmy and Paddy Doyle……John McLoughlin….and Paddy Kenny too was to join them when he came to settle in Thurles…..what a galaxy of star names and what a wealth of talent in one club team over a period”.
The Clare view
Mike MacNamara – “To Hell and Back” – his autobiography – 2000. He is referring to the Clare approach to the now infamous 1998 Munster Final replay against Waterford.
“We urged players not to show any weakness. I was at some of them who allowed themselves to be pushed and knocked around too easily. For the replay, we would take a more manly approach, prepare for it as if it was Tipperary we were going out to play, and go out with the attitude that we were going to tear into them”.
Mike MacNamara – ibid. – refers to Ger Loughnane’s remarks which were reported in the Examiner newspaper in the lead up to the Wexford-Tipperary All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final of 1997. Loughnane suggested that Wexford’s “roughhouse” tactics would not work on Tipp.
“I saw Ger’s comments as a statement that, irrespective of how rough the game gets, Tipperary will stand up to it, and anybody who knows Tipperary hurling knows that they couldn’t take a step backwards from a challenge even if they wanted to – something they’ve proved for over 100 years”.
1997 Munster Hurling Final
Ger Loughnane – “Raising the Banner” – his biography – 2001.
“We won two All-Irelands, and they were brilliant. But this was unique. People outside Clare would find it very difficult to understand just how much it mattered. This was the dream for every Clare person for decades – to beat Tipperary in a Munster Final. Forget about All-Irelands. Had we won six All-Irelands and hadn’t beaten Tipp in a Munster Final, it wouldn’t have been as good, but to win that day and go into the dressing-room was sheer bliss”.
John Leahy
Ger Loughnane – “Raising the Banner” – his biography – 2001. The mention of “Maughan” refers to an incident in the 1997 Connacht Football Final between Mayo and Leitim which was played the previous week, when Mayo manager John Maughan encroached on the pitch, intervened in a row, only to get flattened by a punch.
“In the Munster Final in ’97, there was a lot of travelling across the pitch and I had one memorable confrontation with John Leahy who said to me, - Get off you f*cker or you’ll get the same as Maughan”.
Hurlers – Born or made?
Tony Wall – “Hurling” – 1965 – Tony tackles the “nature versus nurture” debate.
“I have always been fascinated by talk of the born hurler. He is reputed to be found somewhere in the South of Ireland yet I have searched and have failed to find him. What I have found are boys and men who were reared where hurling is the chief form of recreation and the main topic of conversation. In this environment every boy has a hurley. He uses it for hunting home the cows, for “shooting Indians”, for chasing the cat, but above all for hurling”.
Tony Wall
Seamus O’Braonain – “Our Games” – 1966
“He is like good wine – less excitingly spectacular with the passage of the years, but more smooth, safe and satisfying. I speak of Tony Wall, the excellent Tipperary and Munster centre-back for so long that a change will seem, for a time, like iconoclasm. Tony Wall must have the best credentials for consideration as the outstanding defensive hurler of out times. Come to think of it, when has there ever been a greater?”
1989 Munster Hurling Final
Kevin Cashman – Sunday Tribune – On the morning of the match Kevin shows startling prophetic qualities regarding what was about to unfold at “the Park” that afternoon.
“As the world discovered in April ’88, Byrne is not so well equipped to mark Nicholas English. And so, yet again, he is Tipp’s major trump; for he has the ability to overmaster any one of the Waterford full back trio – or of the half backs, come to that.
Much has been made of Waterford’s allegedly greater hunger, and of Tipp’s being - again allegedly – bad in the first half against Limerick. As this observer saw it, what happened was that Limerick – or, at least, eleven of them – were very good in that first half. And Tipp matched them – and then found a significant improvement in virtually every man in the second half.
An encore of the hurling they served up in either period that day should be enough to see off Waterford without undue excitation. And if things go that way, let us hope that Waterford do not dispense “timber” in the lavish manner they did – in victory – here in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, six short years ago.”
1960s Tipperary team.
Justin McCarthy – Cork Examiner Interview, July 1985. The game referred to was the 1985 Munster Hurling Final when – to put it mildly - Tipperary’s physical tactics didn’t meet with the Cork coach’s approval.
“In the talk before the game I spoke about the ‘50s, which I barely remember, and the ‘60s. I think 70 per cent of Tipperary’s wins back then were physical. The aim was getting the man out of the game, hitting him, putting him off, jolting him. And the other 30 per cent was hurling.
Justin McCarthy – “Hooked” his autobiography – 2001
“I will admit one thing. I was wrong in my percentages. That Tipp team of the ‘60s was the best I’ve ever seen. To say that 70 per cent of their wins was based on their physical approach was based on their physical approach and the other 30 per cent could be attributed to their hurling was a hasty, top-of-the –head remark.
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“The Tipperary team which I was part of when I became an adult hurler was not perfect, but it was as close as any team I have been involved with or seen in my years in the game. The greatest fault of all was that we did not win even more, that our domination of hurling during the ‘60s was not complete.
As individuals they were huge in their own right. You needed to be a strong character to survive. Looking at what the individuals achieved later in life shows the kind of men they were. Wall became a Brigadier General, second in command of the Irish Army. Mick Maher became a senior administrator in the GAA and should have become President. Larry Kiely went on to become a successful international showjumper. They knew exactly what they wanted and went after it. The confidence was extraordinarily high. They were a team of thinkers and they had outstanding discipline. Coming into that Tipperary team at the end of 1963 was like being signed for Manchester United. They were big stars, big men and great hurlers. We had a Rolls Royce of a hurling team”.
Justin McCarthy – “Hooked” his autobiography – 2001.
“That Tipp team were as much a machine as the great Kerry football team of Sheehy, O’Shea and Spillane ever were. They too seemed relentless, invincible, overwhelming. It is little wonder ; they had so many good players. John O’Donoghue was a great goalkeeper. You couldn’t get through their full-back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey; if you tried, they’d just put the hurley up to your chest and muscle you away. Wall was a colossus at centre-back, while either side of him, Len Gaynor and Mick Burns were solidity personified. English was an exceptional midfield player. Alongside him was Roche, possibly the best all-round player of his generation. Jimmy Doyle was possibly the best forward of his – and one of the top three of any. Babs could be unstoppable on his day. And then you had Devaney, Nealon, McLoughlin, Ryan. If it wasn’t one fella killing you, it was another. They had options all over the place. And yet they were better than the sum of their parts. They could move the ball in any direction because they could all read each other’s play. They were strong mentally and physically, individually and collectively. They were like………Godzilla”.
Eddie Keher’s Hurling Life – 1978
“They were one of the most outstanding teams I have seen playing. They had fifteen good players and they combined very well. They did a lot of switching of positions; they were a versatile team that could move around. In defence they were very strong : you had John Doyle, Mick Maher, and Kieran Carey in the full-back line. In the forwards you had Jimmy Doyle, Babs Keating, Donie Nealon, Liam Devaney and players of this calibre and in midfield you had two great hurlers ; Theo English and Mick Roche, and their work together with that of the backs and forwards was an unbeatable combination”.
Jimmy Smyth – legendary Clare hurler – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“I am convinced that the greatest team of all times was the Tipperary team of 1961, 1962, and 1964”.
Eamon Cregan – Limerick hurler and manager – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“In 1958 I saw the start of the best team I ever saw or played against and that was Tipperary. I played against that famous Tipperary team, and it was a great team. I didn’t fancy too much their full-back line of Doyle, Maher and Carey so I generally kept out of the way”.
Tipperary 1989/91 Team
Kevin Cashman waxes lyrical about the style of the Tipperary team under “Babs” – Sunday Tribune June 10th 1990, while also – perhaps uniquely among national journalists of the the time - seeing through the motivation and inaccuracy of much of the criticism of John Denton, the Wexford referee of the 1989 All-Ireland semi-final between Tipp and Galway .
“We can be, and we very often are, a contrary and capricious and captious people. We get style from Tipperary and about half of us say “Tipp are no good”. We get blunt basicity from Jack’s Braves and the same half of us say “Jack’s lot have no style”.
That half of the populace seemingly cannot grasp the imperative that you play, as Jack does, with what you have. And mere spectators and hacks, if they have a titter of wit and feeling, give thanks and respect for whatever is achieved. Take for – possibly the best – example Cork’s All-Ireland winners of 1966: nobody will ever ascribe to them the elegant accomplishment which, the aged say, distinguished their predecessors of 1944 and, we all know, their successors of 1984 and just randomly – the Galway team which threw away the final of ’79. Perhaps the decriers should demand that those Cork players of ’66 hand over those medals to the Galway men of ’79, and that, on 9 July, Jack’s Braves hand over their medals to, say, the French or Brazilians of ’82 or ’86.
The rest of us are happy to have lived to see the beauty of these football teams, and sensible enough to have seen and to remember how their own deficiencies thwarted them. And happier to acknowledge the abundance of beautiful hurling given us by Tipperary since June ‘1987. And sensible enough, again, to perceive that Tipp now have fewer frailties than almost any champions of the past quarter century.
In the spate of bitterness and recrimination – and ruffianly detraction of John Denton – before, during, and after last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, the one true and good thing inside that whole horrible episode was ignored and forgotten. In the first twenty minutes of the “game” Tipp played hurling that came within about five narrow wides of perfection The mood of Croke Park – rather akin, one suspects to a Mississippi lynching, or a Nuremburg book burning – soon polluted and halted that excellent demonstration of excellence. But anyone wanting to discover or exhibit the awesomeness and purity of great hurling need look no further than her or his videotape of that twenty minutes.
When you hear, as unfortunates condemned to read letters to the Sports Editor of this newspaper do all the time, “hurling is a simple game” you know it is time to drain your glass and move on. The austerity of Declan Ryan’s and Conal Bonnar’s stickwork is not simple; it is pure, as is the cadenced symmetry of Declan Carr’s and Michael Cleary’s and Nickolas English’s stickwork. Nor simple was the genius and dedication by which Keating and Co. discovered and disciplined a whole new panel in the few months between the disaster of Ennis ’86 and the ecstasy of Killarney ’87.
General views of Tipperary
Eddie Keher’s Hurling Life – 1978
“There was an intense rivalry between the counties, particularly on the border areas between the counties, and although we were “deadly enemies” on the hurling field, I always had a love of Tipperary, their hurling, the Tipperary followers’ attitude to the game, their authoritative reading of the game and assessment of players”.
Peter Finnerty – at a Galway function in New York 2001 – as reported in the Sunday Tribune.
“Hurling’s a great game, it’s just a pity Tipperary play it”.
Eamon Grimes (Limerick’s 1973 Captain) – referring to the 1973 Munster Final V Tipp, and the possibility of a “divine right”.
“That match was far, far tougher than the All-Ireland. You could cut the tension with a knife. Tipperary think they are the only ones with the God-given right to be in an All-Ireland. “
Kevin Cashman – 1991 Munster Hurling Final programme article.
“To play Tipperary : outsiders will never understand, nor experience, the tremor in the blood that simple phrase brings on. Titles and trophies matter – and All Stars matter just a little – but where Cork stand vis-à-vis Tipperary is the only measure that really matters”.
“The rivalry is as ancient and prideful, yet it lacks the bitterness of the Tipp-Kilkenny rivalry”.
Nicky English – Interview with Premierview – December 2001.
“I think it is just as important to have the Tipperary supporters prepared going into a game as it is the players. Traditionally the days Tipperary go into a game expecting a big win are the days when they are most vulnerable”.
Nicky English
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“It is the hardest thing in the world to convince Tipperary people to accept him as one of the great stars, to convince them how good he really was. For those of us who were in Thurles when he was training, each and every player, it was a privilege to be able to appreciate his talent from close quarters. There was one ingredient he never got any credit for and that was his courage. He was very unfortunate with injuries, genuine injuries. He was a great team man. I will never forget the All-Ireland Final in 1989. He had Antrim beaten and then offered to come off to allow a sub to come on and get a run. Here he was, having a fantastic year, about to win an All-Ireland and become Hurler of the Year and he was thinking of others. He is a very decent, generous and gifted individual. Other corner-forwards might have had the skill, the scoring instinct, but they didn’t have his courage. He would do things others would not even dare. When he was fully fit no one could ever get near him. He had an option for every ball that came in”.
Captaincy controversy of 1988 All-Ireland Final
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“Choosing the team was not difficult. There wasn’t room for O’Neill. It was a collective decision. We knew there would be a problem, but felt that Cappawhite would accept the situation and would nominate someone else as captain. That would almost certainly be English because he was also from the west of the county. That suited us as well. Nicky was in brilliant form and well able for leadership. All sorts of stories did the rounds, including one that I and the Supporters Club didn’t think that O’Neill projected the right image for Tipperary hurling because his speech after the League final wasn’t great. That was so utterly stupid it was hard to credit that anyone would say it. Imagine myself, Donie or Theo even considering such a thing. We left him off the team because we believed there was someone else who could do a better job. I got one letter from the parish priest in Cappawhite saying that I had slighted the people and the place. A schoolteacher condemned me for my actions. The resentment was deep and I was badly affected by it all. Did these people really have the interests of Tipperary at heart ? Not as far as I was concerned. They didn’t even have Pa O’Neill’s interests at heart. He should have been spared the controversy by the people who were claiming to be giving him their support”.
Nicky English – “Beyond the Tunnel” his autobiography – 1996.
“It was said by some that I engineered my way to the captaincy. Nothing could have been further from the truth. We all felt Pa might be under pressure to hold his place and I would have had absolutely no problem if the job was given to any other West Tipp man (God knows there was enough of us on the team). I remember saying to Pa, “Jesus, I’m sorry” when the team was named. To be fair to him, he was good about it. At no point did he begin to sulk or start looking daggers in my direction. Unfortunately, not everyone proved so generous towards me. A lot of mischief was put about, suggesting that Tipp wanted their flash boy up collecting the cup, that they wanted to turn it into a total media circus. Now it goes without saying that I wasn’t exactly unhappy about being captain. I think – in Tipperary – it’s every school kid’s dream to be collecting the McCarthy Cup on the first Sunday in September. And I was no exception. But clearly these were not the ideal circumstances in which to be given the captaincy, not when the repercussions almost threaten to over-shadow the game. As All-Ireland final week evolved, it got worse and worse. I got anonymous phone calls at home, I got anonymous letters. An Post came up with special Galway and Tipperary postcards and, while I got hundreds and hundreds from well-wishers, I got a few abusive ones too”.
Jimmy Doyle
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“He was the classiest hurler I ever saw. When it came to real skill he was the Ballesteros of hurling, he had all the shots. He was the complete hurler when it came to shots. He had shots no one else had, he used his hands like no one else could. He saw things that the rest of us would never see. He had great understanding as well as vision. He played the game differently. He was always thinking a few shots ahead”.
Babs Keating
Pat Hartigan – Hurling Heroes – 2000. Limerick’s legendary full-back recounts a confrontation with Babs Keating during the 1971 National League Final which Limerick won by 3-12 to 3-11.
“He remembers marking Babs Keating in that final, and before the ball was thrown in, he said to Babs, “I suppose you have a bet on this game, or a bet on how much you’ll score on me today. We’ll see before this game is over”. As the world knows Babs liked to have bet, but Pat felt immediately that his remark was very immature and said in the tension of the occasion. They had a tough game, but afterwards, Babs came over to congratulate Hartigan and made a remark that stung Pat deeply : “I hope that you’ll be a better sportsman the next time we meet”.
John Doyle
Padraig Puirseal – Long-standing Irish Press GAA Correspondent choosing his best 15 hurlers 1930-’77.
“In the left-corner there was just no alternative to John Doyle from Tipperary though he switched to the right in his later years. There were those who felt that John was a man of hurling brawn rather than hurling brains. Don’t kid yourself. Anyone who saw the strong man from Holycross in his half-back years will confirm that he was a hurler who was master of all the skills”.
Jimmy Smyth – legendary Clare hurler – Munster GAA Story 1986.
“When I entered the arena in 1951 my opponent was John Doyle, Tipperary, now holder of eight All-Ireland medals, all won on the field of play. He was a rollicking, flamboyant, unrelenting defender giving no quarter but always playing within the bounds of christian charity and the rules of the game. In the early ‘50s and ‘60s, no forward was ever baptised properly without the proper laying of hands by Tipperary”.
Paddy Downey – “Our Games” – 1966 – He is referring to John Doyle equalling Christy Ring’s record of 8 All-Ireland senior medals.
“If anyone is hurling deserved to join Ring on the magical pinnacle of fame, that man is John Doyle of Holycross. Not only for the splendid service that he has given to the game and to his county or so long, but because in hurling as well as in mien he typifies our concept of the archetypal Tipperary hurler. The advertising men, if they had anything to do with it, would call it “brand image”. Hurling men might not recognise it by that name; yet it conveys rather neatly the quality that is part of Tipperary’s hurling tradition. It is a quality of style that is intrinsically a part of the man; the rugged power, the sweeping stroke, the touch of dare-devilry, perhaps ; and certainly the cold courage. The image was fathered by Kickham’s mythical Matt the Thresher. Tipperary has always had someone – many times more than one – to fill the role. For seventeen years, and to this day, they have had John Doyle, who more than any other player of this generation, personifies that traditional image of Tipperary hurling and hurling men”.
Mick Roche
Padraig Puirseal – Long-standing Irish Press GAA Correspondent choosing his best 15 hurlers 1930-’77.
“I gave the centre-back position to Mick Roche, a man who, when the mood was on him shared with Bobby Rackard the remarkable facility of playing stylish hurling under the fiercest pressures”.
Babs Keating – “Babs” the autobiography – 1996.
“Without question my good friend Mick Roche was the best hurler I ever saw. He was the best for many reasons. You could argue that Ring was the best corner-forward, Wall was the best centre-back, Reddan or Walsh was the best goalkeeper. But Roche could play at centrefield, centre back, or in the forwards and he was brilliant in every position”.
Ger Loughnane – Hurling Heroes – 2000. Ger recounts his memory of the 1971 Munster Hurling Final when after the Minor game in which he played he viewed the senior game from the sideline in Killarney.
It was such a thrill to be so near to the action, and Ger will never forget the display of Mick Roche that day . Mick was Ger’s boyhood hero. “Mick always seemed to be playing at his ease when everyone else was flailing around”, he said. “The Tipperary man would just glide out of the ruck with the ball and send a lovely long clearance down the field”.
Tony Doran – Hurling Heroes – 2000. The comment which follows not a direct quote from Tony but instead the words of the book’s author Eddie Keher.
“We talked about great players that he played on, and he had no hesitation in saying that Mick Roche of Tipperary was the finest hurler he had seen”.
Thurles Sarsfields
Raymond Smith – Book of Hurling - 1974.
“The Sarsfields had in the ‘50s and ‘60s a team of all talents when they seemed to make the county title their own special property and we began to wonder if real competition would ever again return to the championship. Tommy Doyle…..Mickey Byrne…..Bobby Mokler…the Keanes, Larry, Connie, Michael (“Blackie”)……the Murphys, Noel and Michael……Jimmy and Paddy Doyle……John McLoughlin….and Paddy Kenny too was to join them when he came to settle in Thurles…..what a galaxy of star names and what a wealth of talent in one club team over a period”.
The Clare view
Mike MacNamara – “To Hell and Back” – his autobiography – 2000. He is referring to the Clare approach to the now infamous 1998 Munster Final replay against Waterford.
“We urged players not to show any weakness. I was at some of them who allowed themselves to be pushed and knocked around too easily. For the replay, we would take a more manly approach, prepare for it as if it was Tipperary we were going out to play, and go out with the attitude that we were going to tear into them”.
Mike MacNamara – ibid. – refers to Ger Loughnane’s remarks which were reported in the Examiner newspaper in the lead up to the Wexford-Tipperary All-Ireland Hurling Semi-Final of 1997. Loughnane suggested that Wexford’s “roughhouse” tactics would not work on Tipp.
“I saw Ger’s comments as a statement that, irrespective of how rough the game gets, Tipperary will stand up to it, and anybody who knows Tipperary hurling knows that they couldn’t take a step backwards from a challenge even if they wanted to – something they’ve proved for over 100 years”.
1997 Munster Hurling Final
Ger Loughnane – “Raising the Banner” – his biography – 2001.
“We won two All-Irelands, and they were brilliant. But this was unique. People outside Clare would find it very difficult to understand just how much it mattered. This was the dream for every Clare person for decades – to beat Tipperary in a Munster Final. Forget about All-Irelands. Had we won six All-Irelands and hadn’t beaten Tipp in a Munster Final, it wouldn’t have been as good, but to win that day and go into the dressing-room was sheer bliss”.
John Leahy
Ger Loughnane – “Raising the Banner” – his biography – 2001. The mention of “Maughan” refers to an incident in the 1997 Connacht Football Final between Mayo and Leitim which was played the previous week, when Mayo manager John Maughan encroached on the pitch, intervened in a row, only to get flattened by a punch.
“In the Munster Final in ’97, there was a lot of travelling across the pitch and I had one memorable confrontation with John Leahy who said to me, - Get off you f*cker or you’ll get the same as Maughan”.
Hurlers – Born or made?
Tony Wall – “Hurling” – 1965 – Tony tackles the “nature versus nurture” debate.
“I have always been fascinated by talk of the born hurler. He is reputed to be found somewhere in the South of Ireland yet I have searched and have failed to find him. What I have found are boys and men who were reared where hurling is the chief form of recreation and the main topic of conversation. In this environment every boy has a hurley. He uses it for hunting home the cows, for “shooting Indians”, for chasing the cat, but above all for hurling”.
Tony Wall
Seamus O’Braonain – “Our Games” – 1966
“He is like good wine – less excitingly spectacular with the passage of the years, but more smooth, safe and satisfying. I speak of Tony Wall, the excellent Tipperary and Munster centre-back for so long that a change will seem, for a time, like iconoclasm. Tony Wall must have the best credentials for consideration as the outstanding defensive hurler of out times. Come to think of it, when has there ever been a greater?”
1989 Munster Hurling Final
Kevin Cashman – Sunday Tribune – On the morning of the match Kevin shows startling prophetic qualities regarding what was about to unfold at “the Park” that afternoon.
“As the world discovered in April ’88, Byrne is not so well equipped to mark Nicholas English. And so, yet again, he is Tipp’s major trump; for he has the ability to overmaster any one of the Waterford full back trio – or of the half backs, come to that.
Much has been made of Waterford’s allegedly greater hunger, and of Tipp’s being - again allegedly – bad in the first half against Limerick. As this observer saw it, what happened was that Limerick – or, at least, eleven of them – were very good in that first half. And Tipp matched them – and then found a significant improvement in virtually every man in the second half.
An encore of the hurling they served up in either period that day should be enough to see off Waterford without undue excitation. And if things go that way, let us hope that Waterford do not dispense “timber” in the lavish manner they did – in victory – here in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, six short years ago.”
