When every game could be your last

WHEN T J Ryan's shot hit the post, 20 minutes final, it began to cross into last week's Munster Colm Bonnar's mind that he could be playing his last match for Tipperary.

Although they still led by six points Bonnar's team was beginning to leak points like a sieve and the reminder that their goal was now vulnerable exacerbated the sense of alarm.

These days, Bonnar is aware every match has the potential to be his last. At 32, he runs the usual risk from managerial changes of direction and the dictates of new theory.

In his favour, however, is the general commendation which his play at centre back has attracted. In a perennially problematic position for the team, his experience and application have proved a steadying influence.

The middle Bonnar brother, he suffers from a lack of definition in the minds of some. Older brother Cormac Big Bonnar was instantly recognisable at full forward, his gaunt frame and brigand's beard the physical distinction of an awkward but highly effective presence on two All Ireland winning teams. Younger brother Conal, the most natural of the three, figured prominently at wing back in the same years.

Colm, however, was different. His versatility undermined his claims to any particular position. A regular at midfield for a number of years, his athleticism and fitness sometimes set him at odds with the clean striking Babs Keating wanted from his midfield. It did, however, have its uses.

One of the selectors at the time, John O'Donoghue, remembers the breakthrough 1987 Munster final replay.

"Colm made the move in the second half of extra time that led to the decisive goal. He soloed it well up the field. We were amazed that he was still able to at that stage."

His parallel talents, as a man to man marker, tugged him in the other direction away from an exuberance in possession and down the darker byways of obsessive marking to the detriment of general play. But that's the way selectors like their man markers. Bonnar himself isn't entirely comfortable with the memory.

"The reason I was on Tony O'Sullivan and Martin Naughton and DJ Carey was because of my man marking. I wouldn't care if I never bit a ball as long as my man didn't play. I began to feel that my style had become very negative.

"In 1991, I was following Tony O'Sullivan so closely that I actually fell over Paul Delaney who was marking (John) Fitzgibbon and he scored. I also remember Bobby Ryan on the ground and the team needed someone to get the bail I hadn't the courage to leave my man and clear the ball.

I didn't want to go back to the defence because I was afraid I'd be too negative but bit by bit my confidence grew and I started reading the game well. One of my strengths was that I could read a game but often hadn't the courage to leave my man.

In between these apparently conflicting roles, of midfield and marker Bonnar sometimes fell away not required in either capacity.

The first attempted synthesis of his qualities into the centre back position took place quite a while ago but was never quite proceeded with, and not until the current season has he stamped an indisputable claim to the role.

"He was obvious for the job," says O'Donoghue. "I remember he switched with Bobby Ryan in the 1991 (All Ireland) final and I can still see John Power coming through and Colm turning him upside down. He (Power) wasn't the same afterwards."

Bonnar was aware that he might be in line to take over from Bobby Ryan as the pivot of the defence but also sensed a reluctance on the part of management.

"From about 1989 or 1990 I felt I was being trained for centre back, but it never happened. I don't think Babs ever saw me as a centre back and that was part of the problem. Although I did get man of the match in the Munster final against Cork in 1988.

"In 1992, I was captain and picked at centre back for the Cork match, but it was never intended that I play there. The selectors had seen Tony O'Sullivan score six or seven points against Kerry and switched me onto him before the throw in. Everyone knew that would happen."

There was more than a hint of Babs Keating's reservations about Bonnar in a piece written by the former Tipperary manager for last week's Sunday Times.

"Bonnar," wrote Keating about last week's match, "was the obvious choice for centre back for a couple of years but whether he can compete with Kirby in the air, or play Kirby without fouling him, is a big question. Colm always tended to foul too much..."

"I played against Offaly when we were beaten in the League, moved there in the second half, but thought it was a stop gap measure. After Christmas, I could see they were more serious, that I could forget about midfield. I'd always kept my fitness up so that I could cover from one end to another. I honestly thought that's where I'd be beneficial to the team.

"I learned about pressure games in the League against Cork and Clare. I was learning more and more and I had grown to like it, although I didn't think I would. Since the League play offs, I have been doing much more covering and getting breaks from midfield. People say that Tipp has found a centre back. I'd be delighted with that if I was 27, but at 32 I'd love to have more years ahead of me to learn more.

Together with others of his generation, be feels pressure to perform. As the number of All Ireland medalists has shrunk now to fill only half the team, the more experienced members are meant to guide the way for a team that in recent years has looked diffident in the fife of fired up championship challenges from Cork. Galway, Clare and last year, Limerick. Going into last week's drawn Monster final, Bonnar was aware of all this.

It was the seventh Monster final for some of us and it was said there wasn't the same appetite there and that the young players were too young. We had a point to prove, that we had the bottle and appetite. Hearing that you're not up to scratch helps motivate you. I wouldn't say we'd nothing to lose, but criticism brought us together. Last year against Limerick, we'd eight wides in the last 10 minutes and seemed to have lost our nerve.

THE natural break between generations was marked two years ago by the decision of Babs Keating and his selectors to step down and the succession of Father Tom Fogarty to the manager's position.

Keating's forceful personality had been so deeply involved with the resurgence in the county's fortunes that growing accustomed to his replacement took time.

Naturally less flamboyant than his predecessor, Father Fogarty was well acquainted with a number of the panel whom he had coached at minor level. For the older players like Bonnar, the new manager was an unknown.

Babs had fierce presence. In 1987," says Bonnar "he was the right man for the job and got involved in fund raising and organisation in the camp. Before that, a lot of players got a chance on the team and then well out. Managers were getting a year, losing in the championship by a point and then out. He brought consistency.

"Babs emphasised skillful hurling while Father Fogarty wants the team to get stuck in more and work around the field, put in more of a team effort. He's trying to bring in a quick style no point in slowing it down. Play to the corners and the wings."

Having slipped into the last week's match against Limerick as a virtually unknown quantity, Tipperary stunned their opponents and most observers with a first half performance that marked their best championship hurling in five years. For Bonnar, it was theory turning perfectly into practice.

"We had the breeze in the first half and with Liam Cahill and Tommy Dunne in the corners, we played the way we had been trying to practice in training. That doesn't often come about, but for the first 35 minutes against Limerick, it worked for us. Everyone started so well. We didn't know how fit they were, 59 we wanted to make an immediate impression. We moved the ball well and took our points."

At the back he was holding the line well in the face of Gary Kirby. The defence was tight and aggressive but, very significantly as it turned out, also helped considerably by the wind according to Bonnar.

I felt capable of dealing with everything that came down. In the first half. I could see the goalkeeper's puck out and the wind holding it, take a couple of steps back and put some momentum into it, get a jump into it. At midfield we won every high ball.

"At half time, we knew it was going to be difficult. Because of the wind I had to race for the ball there was no time to judge it coming down. I knew the breeze would play a role but it was a shock when they came into the match so strongly."

The comeback that distinguished the drawn match and turned it from a Tipperary procession into an unbearably tense denouement crept up on Bonnar and his teammates slowly.

Limerick's scoring rate initially gave no indication that full recovery was within their capability.

"I felt we were managing well for the first 5 minutes," he says. "They got one we got one. Then we'd the chance of a goal when still 10 points up and that would have settled it. We were still comfortable after about 19 minutes with six points in it.

"When TJ Ryan hit the post, I felt worst. Limerick were on such a roll, getting the run on the ball with their backs reading our puck outs. Up front, Kirby read the game so well exactly as the first half had been for us. When they drew level with eight minutes left it looked desperate.

"We had to do something. With the high balls coming in we had to catch we couldn't just block or do the sale thing. We all tried to do something different, outside the game plan and began crowding. On Joe Quaid's puck outs, me and (Paul) Shelly were on top of each other.

"I tried to calm down, take the ball or intercept it to slow things down but Limerick were all over us and I dropped a couple. Then Nicky English and Kevin Tucker came on and we seemed to start getting the ball past their half back line. When we saw the ball staying up there a bit longer, we gained a bit more composure.

Maybe Bonnar's intimations of playing mortality are overly pessimistic. His fitness levels are high and his performances have justified his change of position. Anyway, he's already retired before in 1993 after being substituted at midfield in the first half of that year's All Ireland semi final.

I was going fine until the Galway match and got taken off that day. I thought I'd had enough of the pressure and the hassle, that couldn't offer anything more to Tipp. That it had got the better of me. I was under pressure to make the team and then under pressure to stay on it.

"I did tell the boys. After we'd walked to the dressing room, I said to Nicky (English), that's it. I thought we were going nowhere. I was asked back the following spring.

Every game could be my last game for Tipp and I'm trying to do my best and not have that negative feeling. As you get older, you feel its your last game, your last year. The team was a bit lost for a while so games are precious to us."