Niall Moran believes Liam Cahill may have to take a sweeping brush to the Tipperary senior hurling panel ahead of the 2024 season.
Tipperary, in Cahill's first season as manager, exited the championship with a two-point defeat to Galway in the All-Ireland quarter-finals at the weekend. It was a scoreline which flattered Tipperary.
'It might be year three before Tipperary start achieving'
"They’ll be delighted that they’ve found some really good hurlers in Jake Morris - while it wasn’t his best performance on Saturday night he still came of age. They found Alan Tynan, Conor Stakelum, Bryan O’Mara, Rhys Shelly," former Limerick hurler Moran told RTÉ 2FM's Game On.
"But at the other end of the scale, you see Séamus Callanan coming off at half-time, one of Tipperary’s greatest ever hurlers. It was probably Noel McGrath’s worst performance in the last two years, a lot of uncharacteristic wides in the first half.
28 July 2019; Noel McGrath, left, and Séamus Callanan of Tipperary following the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Semi Final match between Wexford and Tipperary at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
"For Tipperary to push on, they might have to find three of four more [players]. There’s only so much these lads [Callanan and McGrath] can do.
"They’ve been pillars for Tipperary, legends, and they owe nothing to Tipp hurling, but if you’re to go and challenge, then there comes a time where you might need to clear it out a little bit. They will have to find new players and that will be Liam’s challenge.
"I think he'll be scouring Tipperary to find a couple of more players. Tipperary won the U17 All-Ireland last year. Those guys will be around 19 next year. I think you could see him going with three or four more of these lads giving them a good pre-season.
"It might be year three before Tipperary start achieving. With a guy like Liam over them, I definitely think they are on the right track.
"There's lessons to be learned. They did run out of steam, and did look flat, but somethings that's not always down to training. That's just guys don't turn up.
"Losing that game to Waterford would probably have knocked their confidence. For a new team, confidence is the only currency that matters."
24 June 2023; Tipperary manager Liam Cahill during the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship Quarter Final match between Galway and Tipperary at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
Moran believes Tipperary's form in their final Munster championship game against Waterford - a defeat which meant they finished third in the table - and in the loss to Galway at the weekend may have been the result of having to do some heavy training earlier in the year.
"For Liam Cahill, just watching his interview after the game on Saturday, he just looked like a guy who is really pulling his hair out," said Moran.
"It was maybe a replica of how Waterford's season petered out last year. You could have made different arguments with Waterford in that maybe there were issues internally or maybe individuals who might not have been pulling.
"With this Tipperary group, they actually gave him everything and were really, really good for three-quarters of the season. Just the last two outings will leave him with a bittersweet taste in his mouth.
"They have made huge progress. Maybe they've had to pay the price for having to do a major body of work earlier on in the year.
"When you're taking over from a different management group, you're trying to establish your own patterns, trying to establish new S&C programmes, getting to know players. That takes a massive body of work right the way through winter into the early season of the league."
GAA On TV: The Hotly Anticipated All-Ireland SFC Quarter-Finals
