Thurles waiting for a break

Tipperary SHC final: It is one of the oldest themes in sport, the death of a dynasty. How can a club that habitually conquer all before them suddenly and drastically lose the touch? How can a club and a tradition become mired in a particular year?

The year 1974 has loomed over three generations of Thurles Sarsfields hurling men. In the autumn of that year, the club won yet another Tipperary senior championship, their 28th in all. Jimmy Doyle, perhaps their most feted son, lifted the cup and everything seemed normal. And then 31 years locked within the county. How?

"Well, that question . . . it comes up. And to be honest, it makes you scratch your head," admits Ger Corbett, a selector with Sarsfields and a Thurles native. "There is no single easy reason. We came back and lost in 1979 and then didn't appear in our next final until 1992. That was 13 years of a gap.

"Around 1997 we started to make an impact at senior level, but at senior level teams like Toomevara were very strong. But we always had good young hurlers coming through here and the club was very keen to do well. It just didn't happen."

On Sunday, Thurles play in their fifth county final in six years. The club brought Ger Cunningham, the Limerick man who trained Newtownshandrum of Cork to county, provincial and All-Ireland success, on board as manager. Cunningham had taken a casual interest in Thurles and empathised with their luckless run over the past half decade.

"Of course this club is desperate to win a county championship again," he says. "They have had to deal with a succession of disappointments in recent years. But from my first meeting with the players it was clear this was a bunch of hurlers determined to make it back to another final. They were very hungry, which was gratifying to me as an outsider and it made my task all the easier."

Cunningham's experience with Newtownshandrum resembled the mythical GAA parish tale. Through enormous effort and a generation of rare talent, they achieved such a polished game plan and a sense of momentum nobody could match them. It is tempting to believe Cunningham could apply the blueprint that worked perfectly in Cork to Sarsfields.

"Well, you do to an extent. It would be no secret that at Newtownshandrum the game plan involved a lot of fast hurling and finding the open man. In Thurles, the style was more traditional to Tipperary, very direct and open. So what we tried to do was just alter it to some extent. I was lucky to inherit players with a lot of skill and good control and it meant they were able and willing to adapt to whatever we asked them to do.

"And to be honest, we never made any direct mention of Newtownshandrum because it would have been irrelevant and unfair. I learned a lot down there and what we have tried to do is apply the best of that to Thurles."

The most glaring difference between the clubs is size. Cunningham has moved from the archetypal hurling village to Thurles, a "townie" town with a romantic GAA past.

"Yeah, of course that means there are a lot more distractions for kids," he says. "Thurles seems to be growing all the time and therefore hurling does not dominate as obviously as it would do in a village. But Sarsfields is such an institution and the work put in at underage level means it continues to play a vital role in the community. I mean, it is hard for me as an outsider to give a reason why the club has had this long wait for a county championship.

"These barren spells seem to just come on teams for no particular reason. I think the important thing from the Thurles point of view is that they are competing consistently and are just waiting for a break."

In the quarter-final, Thurles beat reigning Munster champions Toomevara in a gripping encounter, 2-19 to 2-14.

"The first time we ever beat 'Toom in my lifetime anyhow," says long-serving Thurles man Seán Ryan. "At a time when we were wondering if we were ever going to do it."

In a way, Tommy Dunne's club had begun to overshadow even the desperation for a county title in the minds of Thurles followers. Cunningham knew the game was of paramount importance to his players but the emotion afterwards still surprised him. "In a way it was bigger than the county final for Thurles people. Or at least it was something separate."

The magnitude of the game helped break the season for Cunningham. Like all club managers, the most difficult element of his job is keeping his players interested and motivated during the long months when the All-Ireland championship consumes the nation. While the pressures on the elite stars are well documented, hardly a second thought is given to the sensitivities of the club player.

"It constantly astonishes me," Cunningham says, "the number of truly gifted club hurlers out there who never got county recognition for whatever reason. It has become impossible to plan a club season now because, with the best will in the world, you are at the mercy of the GAA.

"You can have a situation when you are training without really knowing when your next game is and that is a terrible state for hurlers that are as serious and as talented as many county hurlers to train under."

The danger for Thurles now is that locally and in the betting offices, the belief is they have the hard work done. They have killed off the giants and are heavily favoured to deal with Drom-Inch, who are appearing in a first senior final. For a team dealing with the trauma of losing five recent finals, such expectation is perilous.

"It's the classic county final, the village coming up against the big town with the reputation," acknowledges Cunningham. "It is a perfect situation for Drom-Inch, especially as we beat them in the mid (divisional) final. I know what I would be saying in their dressingroom anyway. But look, we set out to give this thing another blast. The players wanted to get back to the final and finish the thing out. I've been happy with them all year and hopefully that will still be the way at five o'clock on Sunday."