For the first three years of his life with Tipperary, Dunne had sealed up holes and staunched leaks. He has seen action on every line, his versatility providing his opportunities. But this time of all times, as the waves had begun to churn beneath his team, the captain had been thrown overboard.
“I was just looking around the ground thinking, ‘Jesus this is the worst f****** moment I’ve had in a Tipp jersey.’ When you’re captain you’re supposed to be leading the fellas out [clenches his fist] but things didn’t work out and that was the killing part of it.”
For weeks before the game, his thoughts had been tinged with concern. His form hadn’t been great. Over the previous year with Tipperary and Toomevara he had played in the half-back line, through centre field and the half-forward line without staying anywhere long enough to settle. His form was in flux, his confidence in danger of being sucked down, too.
“To be honest, I wasn’t comfortable at half-forward. You’ll play where you’re put but things didn’t work out. [My marker] Ollie Moran was on top of his game and he was Limerick captain. I wasn’t comfortable and I got subbed. That was disheartening and disappointing, the whole lot.
“I was just on a poor run of form as well as anything else. It plays a bit on your mind. Against Clare in the National League, I got subbed that day as well. I didn’t seem to be getting to the pace of the game.”
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The week after the drawn game against Limerick, the players held a meeting. The talk was honest, unflinching. They all agreed Sunday’s display had been unacceptable. When they ran out for the replay, the team and its attitude had been reshaped. Dunne fetched up at centre field burning with intent, almost to the point of incineration. “I was trying maybe too hard. We do a small bit of video analysis and I looked at it the week after and they were saying, ‘You were going fine only for the frees you gave away.’ I had to stop and think. That was great because you forget.”
He was replaced as the game went to extra time but his eagerness was still a sign to himself. If the drive was back, the hurling would come, too.
He examined himself for any gaps in his preparations. It was time to shuffle things round. The golf he always denied himself in the week of a game was readmitted to his schedule. Any thoughts of Sunday were held at bay until Saturday morning. The following afternoon he was ready. So were Tipp.
“We have built up a bit of momentum now. You have one bad game but you get better and better again. We have settled down the team a small bit more and that’s probably a factor. We’re probably 10 points a better team than we were at the start of the Limerick game.”
With the grey, sodden days and nights in Limerick left behind them, the sun is shining high in the sky over Nenagh on a glittering Wednesday evening as Dunne picked his way through a tight web of roads meandering from town to home in one corner of Toomevara parish. A day’s work has ended and all was still in the little farmyard beneath the gaping Devil’s Bit. Plates are piled high with dinner after a day at silage. A basket-load of shorts are freshly washed for Tipperary and Toomevara training sessions.
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The Dunnes have seen the good and bad these weeks can bring. The walls are dotted with photographs of Tommy receiving All Stars and the five Dunne brothers winning county titles with Toomevara. Time is soaked up by work and hurling, one trimmed to fit the other.
Now the clock ticks away to training in Thurles as Dunne scoots around the house collecting gear, distributing tickets and scoffing food. Over in Thurles onlookers speckle the old stand on the kind of evening many of them never imagined a few weeks before: the sun burning up the ground and Tipp in a Munster final.
“It’s been crazy in a Tipp jersey for a couple of years. It has been disappointing but I think we’ve put our finger on it. Cork in Killarney last year, they got the scores at the right time. Eoin [Kelly] had a point that could’ve been a goal. Things could’ve been different.”
As this year began, the team checked themselves in the mirror for blemishes. In 2002, Dunne had been parachuted into the half-forward line, shot 2-2 against Waterford in a Munster final in his first senior start for Tipp and played in a titanic All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny. He was nominated for an All Star in two successive years and Tipp’s presence among the top handful of teams didn’t need confirming.
Then they were cast adrift. Key players were stricken by injuries. Management teams imploded. Last year they lost a bad game to Waterford and ran out of breath against Cork. New players stepped off the assembly line each winter but none of them fully clicked together.
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“It was frustrating. We seemed to be in games for two-thirds of them, then teams seemed to run away from us. Kilkenny in 2003, Cork last year, the League final [against Kilkenny in 2003] as well. We were a good number of scores up and Kilkenny came back and ran through us for a couple of goals. That showed there was something wrong.
“It was there for the taking [against Cork in Killarney] but it was a total lapse in concentration. It was a strange pitch. We hadn’t played there before. We changed our team round a bit. We were in it for long periods but I think they just got the scores at the right time.”
They continue to try to bridge the gap back to their old selves. Critics said the steel that once glinted in Tipperary teams had been dulled. The words were absorbed. This year they’ve won in a tempest against Clare, having dug in to survive a bad performance against Limerick and willing themselves to win the replay.
“The results came in bad conditions. Real die-hard stuff. The way results went last year was more bad luck and making wrong decisions than [a lack of] pride in the jersey. I don’t think anybody that puts on a Tipp jersey could say they wouldn’t die for it, because they would.”
They have already broken even on the year’s investment. Now it’s time to collect their dividend. Training goes on at a gentle pace in Thurles, each player tweaking and honing his game. The players fan out across the field in groups of three, one pucking the ball high in the air for a player in the middle to double on to another standing at the far touchline. As some struggle with the ball in flight, Dunne moves seamlessly to its pitch and strikes 13 in a row crisply into the stands.
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Four days to go to Cork. His eye is in. His heart is full.