The Tipperary B team beat the A team during an in-house game just one week before the All-Ireland senior hurling final.
Tipp gambled on playing Bryan O’Mara as a sweeper against Cork at Croke Park in Sunday’s decider. The tactic proved to be a cornerstone to their stunning victory.
However, their initial trials of playing an extra defender in training weren’t exactly successful
“We trained last weekend and it didn’t actually work out for us; we had a terrible game in-house, the A versus B,” said Tipperary player Eoghan Connolly.
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“[The B team won] and by an awful score as well. There was wicked heat inside in Thurles last weekend and it was probably our first time playing with a plus one in a long time, since the Clare game I think. So it just took us a while to get to grips with it. But even by Friday evening, we were training and we couldn’t get enough of it.
“Liam [Cahill] and Mikey [Bevans] put in massive work in the background. We got our match-ups right on Sunday and thankfully got the result.
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“I have been involved since 2021 and I’ve been on the B team for a few years of that. It’s just the competition; them boys are mad for a jersey as well. They are all so competitive, so it just drives everybody’s standards that bit higher.”
Connolly was marking Moneygall’s Joe Fogarty for much of that in-house game.
“He’s actually a carbon-copy of Séamus Harnedy. I got an awful licking off him last weekend – I was even half-worried as to what my form was at, to be honest,” he said.
But Connolly need not have worried as he delivered a strong performance on Sunday to help Tipperary win a first All-Ireland SHC title since 2019.
And he intends to be back out on the pitch next Saturday when his club Cashel King Cormacs play Clonoulty-Rossmore in a West Tipperary SHC final at Golden.
