One month after the big loss GAVIN CUMMISKEYgets the candid views of Tipperary's Lar Corbett
AN IMPRESSIVE array of elite hurlers gathered in Croke Park yesterday as the nominations for the newly combined GAA-GPA-Opel All Stars were announced.
Michael Fennelly and Lar Corbett gave us the contrasting views a month on from the All-Ireland final that saw Fennelly’s Kilkenny regain the title from Corbett’s Tipperary (Fennelly is also a front runner to succeed Corbett as hurler of the year).
We were more interested in the dust-settling views of the vanquished; the agony of defeat always tending to make for more captivating reading than tales of jubilation.
“There’s no easy way out of it, it’s a tough place to be,” said Corbett. “We would have come up confident, with a fairly good chance, but it is a lonely place to be. I’m not going to dress it up – it’s hard to handle, it’s hard to take but in life you have to pick yourself up and drive on.
“If it’s in the workplace or sport, you can’t let it get you down for too long. But it did get us down and it was disappointing – that’s the facts of it. It’s just tough.”
What about the contrast between Corbett in the 2010 final and the stranglehold put on him this time around? The former hurler of the year expects this query and doesn’t miss a beat.
“All my interviews over the last number of years would have been: it’s not about me, it’s about the set-up. Even when things went well in 2010, it’s not about what Lar Corbett does, it’s about what Tipperary does. My own personal performance in the final; I would be disappointed because I didn’t get on to as much ball as I could have got on to and should have got on to. That’s back down to Kilkenny asking all the questions – they held our forwards tight on the day, we had no answers for them.
“That’s the facts – I would have been happy enough maybe getting a hand pass to John O’Brien for a ball over the bar and a hand pass to Pa Bourke for a goal. If I could do more assists – that’s not about me scoring or anything like that. If I can help out the team more and get the ball on to the next man in a better position.”
Kilkenny were hungrier, Lar, weren’t they? Sportsmen despise this question because in their minds no opponent is hungrier than them. They just beat them. That’s all.
“People always wait for the result of a match to find out who was hungrier or not. You’d always hear it after a match – ‘they were fitter’ or ‘they were hungrier’. But the crowd saying that are the crowd that won. There was nobody saying that before the match, that Kilkenny were hungrier or fitter.
“Kilkenny played better than Tipp on the day but in saying that, you’d hear people at home saying there was only four points in it and it was close. If Tipp won it that day, we would have robbed it. Kilkenny deserved it – they played better on the day and that’s what it comes down to. They passed the ball around to each other. Tipp just didn’t play as well as they could have played.”
There is no word yet on the future of ageing players within the camp but, the highly-rated fitness trainer Cian O’Neill has taken his leave after four years. The Kildare native will instead put James Horan’s Mayo footballers through their paces next season.
“He got us into the condition that we are in today and I don’t think you need me to say that. The facts are there to prove that, Tipperary have come a long way since Cian O’Neill got involved. I know that he’s going to Mayo and probably doing a different role with Mayo but he was super to the Tipperary set-up. I’d like to wish him the best of luck but Tipperary will be sad to see him go.”
And what of the management? “I don’t know. Declan, Tommy and Glossy have to sit down to see what they want and players will have to look at themselves as well. I haven’t heard anything at the moment but between now and Christmas will tell a lot.”
That’s how it goes. Tipperary hurlers must winter with the pain of a September casting a dark shadow over their collective psyche.
“In 2009 when we got beat, Tipp were hurt in 2010 and they’re the days you have to remember, the ones that you are disappointed. Definitely, what happened in 2011 will be used in 2012 and I think that works for people in general and in life that you use it to your benefit. You have to forget about what happens but still you have to remember the hurt, yeah.”
As the most famous of fictional coach’s once told his players: Because in either game, life or hurling, the margin for error is so small.
