The official statement from the Tipperary county board arrived late on Tuesday night: 21 words, the final two of which were “disciplinary reasons.” The panel and management had met that evening for the first time since their defeat to Cork but earlier in the day word had been swirling around that Cathal Barrett had been cut from the panel. The papers had it. Tipperary came clean.
They handled it wisely because there is no way of stuffing the genie back into the bottle. The rumours would have persisted and after the panel meeting on Tuesday night word would have escaped somehow; as Donald Trump has discovered, absolutely confidentiality is a slippery principle.
And yet, not all of these stories get out in a way that are fit to print. Some counties take that gamble. One high profile inter-county player was cut from the panel for a drink-driving offence earlier this year and has since returned without a written word on the cause of his absence; another was let go for drinking too but his absence was covered with an off-the-peg explanation that wasn’t challenged at the time.
In Tipperary, though, everything seems to get out on a certain level. Jackie Tyrell, the former Kilkenny player, said during the week that he can’t remember any player being dropped by Brian Cody for disciplinary reasons or at least he couldn’t remember an incident such as that being made public. And that was the critical distinction. Over the years Kilkenny players occasionally stepped out of line too but not all of them were thrown off the panel: those situations were managed in-house and largely smothered.
In Tipp, managing this kind of stuff has been a real challenge for successive managers because so much has gone on. In interviews now when Tipp players are asked about disciplinary explosions in the past the pat, rehearsed line is that these stories were exaggerated and it wasn’t nearly as big a problem as people make out.
Advertisement
That’s not the case. It was brought to our attention this week that, over a three-year period, a handful of incidents involving Tipp players reached the courts but the cases weren’t covered in the local press and therefore didn’t reach national attention. The incidents themselves would not have been newsworthy except for the identity of the culprits. This was the kind of fire-fighting that Tipp were forced to undertake.
“The big failures in discipline probably came in 2012 and 2013 rather than in 2011,” said the former Tipperary goalkeeper Brendan Cummins earlier this year. “2012 really was when the breakdown was. You could easily say that the whole thing collapsed in an 18-point defeat to Kilkenny in 2012 because lads were gone off the rails. 2011 wasn’t as lunatic as that.”
Over the last season or two things have calmed down, whether through greater maturity on the panel or tougher governance. When Michael Ryan took over as manager from Eamon O’Shea he was acutely aware of the challenges he faced. In broad terms he didn’t take any nonsense.
Once Tipp won the All-Ireland, Ryan was conscious of micro-managing their response over the following months. They declined an invitation to appear on the Late Late Show, public appearances by players with the cup were ruled out after December, one-on-one player interviews were not permitted outside of occasional product launches. Their image and their message were controlled.
Cummins put it best during the winter: “The Tipp players are living like hermits,” he said. “It’s amazing. Any of the past players I’ve met it’s like, ‘There’s not a word about it. It’s like they never won it.’ It’s unbelievable. There’s no rumours. No nothing. Only that Mick Ryan has frightened the life out of the whole place.”
Advertisement
Which is not to say that it had been completely plain sailing. Two Tipp players were carpeted for their behaviour at a fun run on the May bank holiday weekend and forced to apologise to the group at training on the following evening.
In the Barrett case there were avenues of less resistance open to Ryan. Because Barrett is injured for at least the next month Ryan could have let the incident sit. Had a quiet word. Contained it. Instead he was true to his principles. His response was strong and exemplary. How will it affect them? In our view, this was the week when Tipp’s status as front-runners for the All-Ireland hardened again.