Driving them on.
Who the hell would want to be a sub? Who the hell would want to be sitting on the sideline?
If any GAA player has no qualms about not starting, they’re sure as hell playing the wrong game.
It’s a team game, but all players think like individuals. Players prepare for games like individuals. If individuals don’t perform, the team is screwed.
A team is at its best when every single member is aiming to outdo his teammates. Aiming to leave his teammate sitting when the team is playing its biggest game of the year.
Tipperary won the All-Ireland in 2010. Brendan Cummins says that every single member of that Premier County panel drove each other on.
They didn’t want to be left on the bench.
Conor O’Brien epitomised this attitude.
“I remember Conor O’Brien coming in training, he was a sub, and he was as angry as anybody because he wanted his place. You knew when looking at him when he was out training,” said Cummins at a recent AIB event.
O’Brien was obsessed. He was doing mad things. He was getting inside his own head. He was getting himself pumped. He was getting inside Michael Cahill’s head as well. He was getting inside Paddy Stapleton’s head, too.
No cornerback in the Tipperary set-up was safe with O’Brien showing such fire.
“We trained at half seven but he’d be on the pitch at five to seven beating balls on his own up and down the pitch like a crazy person,” added the side’s goalkeeper.
O’Brien drove on Cahill and Stapleton. They were scared of him and what he was doing.
“You just knew he wanted to play. And when you felt comfortable in your skin that you have your position, you got uncomfortable looking at the likes of his behaviour, and that’s what you need,” added the Ballybacon-Grange club man.
All of the so-called subs were going to such lengths.
“Seamus Hennessy was the same way. All those fellas who came on in the 2010 All-Ireland Final and made a difference, they were going mental for six months before that because they weren’t getting a game and that shook all the rest of us,” he said.
“That’s why I think the challenge is to get numbers 17 to 30 going berserk. Because I think from 1 to 17 we’re okay. But that 17 to 30, they win you All-Irelands,” added Cummins.
With the new Championship structures, numbers 17 to 30 will be changing hands much more regularly. A strong panel will be more and more important. It will be easier for managers to motivate these fringe players.
Training will be even more ferocious.
“It’s a help for county managers now because they’ll be able to tell those players that we’re going to have 12 or 15 matches between League and championship, I need everybody, so don’t think you’re someone who’s just going to be planted on the sideline for six matches and then the year is over, you’ll be needed,” said Cummins.
In both 2010 and 2016, Tipperary were expected to go on and dominate the hurling landscape for quite a while. It didn’t happen on either occasion.
“We don’t wear the pressure of All-Ireland champions that well, unfortunately. I gave two years trying to do it and we couldn’t for pretty much the same kind of reasons that happened the lads this year, the enjoyment gets sucked out of it,” reasoned Cummins.
“Your own expectations get so big that you weigh yourself down and then in matches it looks like you’re tired. That’s because I think internally you’ve played the match 100 times before you actually got to it. And when you got to it then you’re mentally exhausted and couldn’t produce,” he said.
In 2017 they struggled. Losing to neighbours Galway in the semi-final will give them plenty of reason to be fired up again.
“That’s it, there’s still a core of lads who have won the All-Ireland there, but they need to get back enjoying their hurling and get more lads in around them and I think Mick will do that,” said the ‘keeper.
Tipperary have a lot to prove, and that’s where they’re at their most dangerous.
“Mick now will be able to say in the dressing-room, ‘look, lads, you’re not All-Ireland champions anymore, Galway are the ones to shoot at now, so let’s prove to everybody that we’re able to do it again.
“There’s a weight off the group now. It’ll be very interesting. There are probably only three or four players needed for the goalkeeper position and the starting outfield spots.”
All they need is some fresh blood.
“But we definitely need five or six more added to the panel. The reason we won All-Irelands at the time was because number 17 to 30 was chomping at the bit every single night.”
Ballybacon-Grange’s Brendan Cummins ahead of the AIB GAA Munster Junior Hurling Club Championship Final on Sunday, December 3rd.
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