Conor Sweeney
By John Harrington
The novelty of Tipperary’s presence in the All-Ireland SFC Semi-Finals doesn’t diminish no matter how often you look at the pairings.
The fact they they’re joined in the final four by Dublin, Kerry, and Mayo only emphasizes how much of a bolt from the blue and gold the Premier County’s progression to this stage of the Championship has been.
Dublin, Kerry, and Mayo have a combined tally of eight All-Ireland Final appearances between one another in the past five years. Tipperary haven’t played in once since 1920.
Making it as far as the All-Ireland semi-finals is an incredible achievement for a team that flirted with relegation from Division 3 of the Allianz Football League earlier this year. All the more so considering how many quality players they lost for a variety of reasons from the panel that competed in the 2015 Championship.
Even the Tipperary players themselves aren’t quite sure how they’ve suddenly transformed themselves from a team with potential into one of the best four in the country this year.
At their media event for Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo, Tipp corner-forward Conor Sweeney admitted there’s no easy answer to that question.
“I think it's a mixture of different circumstances because I think we're after losing three or four quality players,” said Sweeney. “So are we a better team? Probably not than this time last year because we had better players probably last year. I don't know what it is. I think we've just gotten so close and I think it's a never say die attitude really.
“Like, you know, down through the years, when Derry got that late goal the last day, if that was a previous team we would have lost that game. And we'd have lost the Cork game as well.
“But we didn't. We had to win the games twice and three times and it's just that will to keep going I think to the very end because sport is a funny old game these days, anything can happen. We're just playing to the final whistle.”
Liam Kearns and Conor Sweeney celebrating at Croke Park.
Given the option, Tipperary would certainly much prefer to have players like Colin O’Riordan, Steven O’Brien and Seamus Kennedy in their ranks than not. But perhaps losing those three star players as well as many more of a high-calibre brought those who remained on the panel closer together.
“Maybe it did in a way, without even thinking about it too much,” says Sweeney. “I think when the lads left it was massive but we had to draw a line in the sand then because I think there was too much talk about the lads that were gone.
“It just goes to show the lads who came in have done fantastic. Yeah, maybe psychologically it did drive us on a small bit without even knowing it.”
They went down to Killarney to face Kerry in the Munster Final believing they could pull off a shock, but were instead handed a sobering 10-point defeat. They’ve bounced back since with impressive wins over Derry and Galway, and Sweeney believes they’re better equipped now to make the step up in standard that will be required against Mayo than they were when they played Kerry in that Munster Final.
“I think so, yeah,” he says. “I think we learned a lot that day in Killarney. I know we got a bit of a hiding that day but we learned so much from that game, like. We were a bit naive going down into it and I think we were a bit taken aback by how negative they were defensively as well.
“Like I said, we've learned a lot, and I think we're definitely better equipped now for the big occasion and everything. I think the Munster Final and the day out the last day in Croke Park will definitely stand to us now.
“We're confident in our own ability. We've been confident for the last few years, it's just this year we're after getting exposure. I think our panel isn't big, we use about 17 players for the majority of our games.
“I think we're just really close, you saw the last day, our work rate and our intensity was sky high the last day. It was definitely a lot better than Galway's. I think that was the difference at the end of the day. If we can match that intensity the next day, we'll be happy enough.”
Paul Murphy
Sweeney describes the challenge of defeating Mayo as a ‘massive’ one, but it's quite clear too that he really believes he and his Tipperary team-mates are capable of doing it. Between now and the match he’ll be thinking positive thoughts and visualising what it will take to propel Tipperary into their first All-Ireland SFC Final for 96 years.
“On a personal level I think you have to start visualising now next week playing there, getting on the ball, and whether you're a defender and it's tackling or a forward and it's scoring, you have to see yourself putting the ball over the bar or else you're not going to do it,” he says.
“Look, we're there, I think we're there on merit. We're massive underdogs which is fair enough considering who we're playing. If we can go there and compete as well as we did the last day we'll be happy enough.”