Thurles Sarsfields looking forward to showing off their wares

These are busy days in the GAA’s original heritage town. Just under a fortnight ago, Thurles heard the news that Mickey “the Rattler” Byrne, an evocative name on the local and national hurling scene, had died at the age of 93.

That afternoon, the Sarfields senior team won the club's 35th Tipperary championship. The town was crowded with GAA luminaries the following Wednesday for Byrne's funeral. And tomorrow, Thurles Sarsfields will host Waterford champions Ballygunner in Semple stadium. It has, manager Paddy McCormack agrees, been a strange couple of weeks for the club.

“Mickey was someone that you got to know fairly quickly, he was great for a joke or a yarn and he would have you in good form playing championship matches. I never saw him hurl but I heard about him. We all knew about his record of 14 county titles and five All-Irelands and he was someone we looked up to. So we heard about it that morning and it was very sad so we were delighted to win the final for the Byrne family that day.”

Enjoyable time

This is an enjoyable time to be involved with Sarsfields. Their county final win over Kiladangan looked comprehensive on the score board (1-27 to 0-15) and gave Thurles their third consecutive winter with the

Dan Breen

Cup. “Well, it’s never comfortable on the sideline,” McCormack says.

“Kiladangan have won a number of north championships and they are a coming team . . . I’d say 10 or 11 are around the age of 22 and they will have learned a lot from that game.”

The latest win leaves Sarsfields out on their own in terms of historical supremacy within Tipperary, having collected those 35 titles despite a vacuum of championship years between 1974 and 2005. In addition, the club has just purchased 15 acres of land close to the greyhound stadium and will initiate a fundraising drive this winter to fund the development of two pitches. The structure within Sarsfields is unusual.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when they produced the best teams within Tipperary every other year, there was no juvenile set up, which led to the establishment of Dúrlas Óg in 1974, which is dedicated to underage hurling. Once players graduates to minor grade, they go into the Sarsfields set up.

"Dúrlas Óg are an independent club in their own right but the majority of players who come through their club go on and play with Sarsfields," says secretary Thomas Callanan. "They have the option to play with other clubs as well but that is what we do. So I would hope we would always be competitive when it comes to county championships but we are in the midst of a golden generation in terms of the senior players we have right now."

Callanan has been secretary since 2005, a hugely significant year for Thurles when they came roaring back from the wilderness. Ensuring that the administrative side of the club is stable and promoting coaching have been key goals.

“We like to think that we put a lot into coaching. Our coaches are from the area and if somebody is interested we try to up-skill them and make them more rounded.”

There is no neat answer as to why Thurles didn’t feature on the honours scroll for a full 30 years but present club members are striving to make sure they don’t fall into a similar hole in future. Callanan, though, believes that the basic reason is straightforward.

“I would put it like this: we didn’t have the intercounty standard player that we had for the past 10 years. If you look back at Tipp’s All-Ireland years, the county team wasn’t successful from 1972 to ’89. And in Thurles, the players . . . they might have been there but they weren’t recognised or reaching the standard. In 1989 or 1991 we had no Sarsfields players on the All-Ireland winning panels. And you do need to have that to challenge for club titles.

“You will possibly reach county finals every now and again. But we have had four or five players on Tipp panels in recent years and that makes a big difference.”

And it wasn’t as if they simply packed the game in during those years. Thurles lost the 1992 final to Toomevara and a further four finals-in-a-row (2000 to ’03) before they came good in 2005. As in all strong hurling counties, the local scene is notoriously competitive.

Toomevara’s flame was bright through the 1990s and 2000s: Thurles have been the standard bearers since ’05. Most of Tipperary’s current All-Ireland winning senior squad have way more All-Ireland medals than they do county senior medals.

Playing lifespan

That’s what makes the achievement of Byrne and his contemporaries so significant. It is unlikely that any Tipp club will land 14 county titles within the playing lifespan of any hurler. As Paddy McCormack points out, there was no All-Ireland competition in Byrne’s era. It is probable that those Thurles teams would probably have featured strongly if there had been.

As it is, Tipperary’s colouring of the All-Ireland club scene is relatively light. Roscrea won the first club All-Ireland in 1971 but only two clubs have followed suit. Kilruane McDonaghs were the All-Ireland champions of 1986 and have not won a Tipperary championship since. Borris-Ileigh were All-Ireland champions in 1987: they haven’t managed to win a Tipperary championship since either. It is a notoriously tricky championship to negotiate. Since resuming their role as the club to beat a decade ago, Thurles won the Munster championship in 2013 but have yet to feature in an All-Ireland final. It is an anomaly, given their local dominance.

"At the start of any season our goal is to win the Dan Breen. Then the Munster championship is like a new competition. We feel we have been close. In recent years, we lost to Newtownshandrum by a point who went on to win Munster (2009). We were beaten by De La Salle by a point in the Munster final (2010). We had Denis Maher sent off below in Cratloe and started the game with 14 men (2014)," recalls McCormack.

"Last year against Na Piarsaigh . . . really, I suppose, we were under a bit of a cloud because we had lost Jackie Griffin, our trainer. Now, on the day we had absolutely no excuses because Na Piarsaigh were very strong and worthy winners and they went on to prove themselves a great team by winning the club All-Ireland."

The tragic death of Griffin overshadowed anything Thurles achieved last year. While there was a general sense of sadness and reflection for Byrne in the town this last fortnight, it was a fitting farewell to a hurling grandee who had wrung every ounce out of life.

Griffin, a former county minor medallist with Thurles, was a selector with Sarsfields last year when he was hit by a car while out jogging close to the town last November. He was 47. A lieutenant colonel in the Irish Army, he was home on leave from Brussels but had managed to stay involved with the club at coaching and administrative level. He is an irreplaceable figure.

Bookies favourites

“Jackie was very much in our thoughts throughout the county championship. He was very close to us all and a big part of our set up,” said McCormack. “We are all great friends and a big family club and there was a lovely tribute in the county final when Pádraig (Maher, the Thurles captain, who asked the Griffins’s three young daughters, Laragh, Isabelle and Emma, to lift the cup) brought Jackie’s three children up to collect the cup. Hurling is not the only thing in life.”

Thurles are among the bookies favourites to enjoy a prolonged winter run. They are at once a big name and a small community. McCormack is an uncle to the Maher brothers through marriage as well as their next door neighbour.

“Of course we are proud of them all. But they are back in the club now and they are just ordinary lads. They can have their All-Irelands but they are no different to anyone else. And they are happy with that.”

On Sunday, the gates of Semple Stadium will swing open early. Even though the most famous hurling venue is located on the edge of town, Sarsfields rarely use it. “We don’t train there. We are really only in there for county finals” says McCormack. “So playing there remains a special thing for Thurles.”

And McCormack doesn’t believe it gives the local side an advantage. “Ask any Limerick, Cork or Waterford person . . . I don’t think they have a problem playing in Thurles. It is a bit like playing in Croke Park. For many of them, their best days have been on that field. I think there are similarities between ourselves and Ballygunner.

“Both teams have players who play under-21 and senior with their counties. Both have won three in a row. It should make for a great day.”