Tipperary's number one under no illusions

GAELIC GAMES/BRENDAN CUMMINS:The veteran goalkeeper knows a complete performance is required if Tipperary are to avenge last year’s final defeat, writes GAVIN CUMMISKEY

IMAGINE IF BRENDAN Cummins had accepted the massive hint dropped by Babs Keating back in 2007? He had already served a fair old stint, since 1995, as the Tipperary goalkeeper. He was 32 and had his All-Ireland medal from 2001. His performances had also won him three All Stars.

Keating’s second stint as manager didn’t work out though and, when Liam Sheehy arrived in 2008, Cummins was restored between the sticks as Gerry Kennedy’s brief tenure, much like Jody Grace in 1994, ended.

Babs was wrong. Cummins was by no means a spent force. His fourth and fifth All Stars followed in the next two seasons as Tipperary returned to the All-Ireland final, where Kilkenny’s four in a row quest proved too much to handle.

The breakthrough came a year later. It seemed like sheer hunger denied Brian Cody’s men the much heralded Drive for Five.

Former Tipperary hurler Richie Stakelum this week described the 2010 final as the greatest game he had ever seen against the greatest team. Tipp won, with Cummins landing a long-range point in a thriller. An instant classic.

But the lustre of that victory faded 12 months later when Kilkenny grabbed the Liam MacCarthy back over the border.

Until last September it seemed like Tipp were poised to dominate the hurling landscape. They seemed to have the hunger to go with a fabulous collection of young hurlers.

“Hopefully that’s the way the cycle is running,” said Cummins. “I think what the key is – it surprises me at times when you hear that players didn’t want to win or there wasn’t enough hunger there – every player really wants to win when they go out and play. They just have to make sure that the performance is there from the 15 players and the five coming in.

“So, you need the performance from all 20 players in order to finish the job. If you get a performance from eight, 10, 12 players – that might have been good enough six, seven years ago but not with this Kilkenny team. You need 15 performing at the highest level for as long as they can and then you empty the bench and hope they can finish the job.

“Galway did that – I don’t think Kilkenny had a major lack of hunger, they just were overawed by Galway in that time.

“The same for Tipp last year in the All-Ireland final – it took 16 minutes for us to score a point against Kilkenny. Now we were trying to score and all that but it was just the hunger and desire and every one of them going in the one direction.”