Bonner unbound for Tipperary

Lorrha had produced good Tipperary hurlers over the years, but never a force of nature. Among all the artists and razor-sharp scorers that light up Tipperary’s forward line, Maher is the indispensable one. He is the ultimate 21st century battering ram, born with the selfless qualities to sacrifice himself physically for the team, scientifically refined over the last seven years for maximum impact. “There’s no end to his strength and endurance,” says Tommy Dunne, who coached him at every grade with Tipp. “Hitting Bonner hard doesn’t register. He’ll come back to see if he can hit you harder next time.”

The years glitter with key interventions, turnovers and assists. He has matched all-time greats in the biggest games and forced them to turn on their heels and chase him. When GPS monitors were attached to the Tipp players a few years back, Maher was outrunning everyone by three kilometres per game. Look at Tipp with him and Tipp without him. He plays with the courage and dash they always wish to see in themselves, how Tipperary always aspire to be.

Flicking through his career the pages depict a steady accumulation of landmark wins and paragraphs ending with All-Irelands. Rathcabbin won a county schools title with Maher at centre-back. He jumped the border for secondary school and won a Leinster vocational title with Banagher.

“Bonner was Bonner then,” says Seamus Hennessy, who played against Maher at club and schools level before lining out alongside with him with Tipperary from minor through to the senior team. “All the attributes we see now were already there, but the stuff he’s able to do has to be in you from the start.”

He scored the winning goal for Lorrha-Dorrha to win a north Tipp intermediate title way back. One morning he went to a trial in Templemore for the Tipp minors. He had been on the edges of their radar, popping up like a blip.

“He was very similar to the player he is now,” says Dunne. “He had a terrifically good attitude and got through an enormous amount of work. He was the perfect fit for the other players who were there, the likes of Brendan and Padraic Maher, Noel McGrath, Michael Cahill. He really stood out. We knew from the word go he was special.”

His first year as a minor in 2007 under Liam Sheedy ended with an All-Ireland title. Same again in 2010 with the under-21s. Sheedy had pulled him in for the Tipp seniors in 2009 and landed him into a 2010 qualifier against Wexford. It ended with a dressing-down from Eoin Kelly and Lar Corbett when he missed a handy pass to set up a goal. That was recycled into tributes and fist pumps when he played Kelly in for a goal against Galway two games later. He was trusted on Tommy Walsh in his first All-Ireland final. Limited him to five clean pucks of the ball. Another All-Ireland.

Maher’s natural style always correlated with the aggression Tipp always needed to contrast with the precise, crafted attacking play around him. When his army duties detained him in 2013 during the league and limited him to 10 sessions all year with the team, he took one-on-one grinds with manager Eamonn O’Shea. Applying that care and attention over the years added more colour to other parts of his game.

“I’d say the most influence Eamonn had on any player was Bonner,” says Hennessy. “He took his hurling ability to another level entirely. He’s now the best in the country at the one-handed overhead trap of a high ball. He holds his hurley in the left hand and knocks the ball down to someone else, or often himself. Then he controls it, and he’s away. When I started out with him, that kind of skill was not considered part of his game. A lot of that is down to Eamonn’s work.”

Kinks in his game? Scoring was never part of his original job spec, but at times when everything about Tipp was being questioned, Maher was also lined up. Before 2014 he had gone nine consecutive games without a single score. He started out that year hammering in two goals against Clare in the league semi-final. He scored in five championship games out of seven, including 1-1 against Kilkenny in the drawn All-Ireland final and ended up an All Star.

“He’d be incredibly mentally strong,” says Dunne. “To take the physical toll given the way he plays is extraordinary. And he rarely he gets injured, even though he plays such a physically abrasive game. I remember distinctly saying when he was younger how his tackling was absolutely brilliant. He seldom commits fouls. In terms of coaching, there was very little to do. He understood how we wanted him to play and he was perfectly suited to what the team needed. In terms of workrate Bonner is the project leader in that regard.”

The name came from spending the evenings after World Cup games in 1994 diving around the garden like Packie Bonner. The meticulous work ethic that has him continuing to max out every physical measure of himself came through different parts of the family tree. He spent last winter on the Golan Heights with the UN, came back and ricked a hamstring before Tipp played Cork. Tipp looked meek without him, almost passive.

“It’s no surprise Tipp don’t start off all that well if Bonner doesn’t play,” says Hennessy. “As the year goes on and Bonner becomes more influential, Tipp start playing better. There’s a direct correlation.”

Tipp have thrived on his energy and aggression in every game since. Today he will be among the bannermen sent forth to set the tone for the toppling of a team of men mountains. How the Bonner goes, Tipp will follow.