Tipperary look to future with Michael Ryan decision

With the 2014 season barely cold in the ground, the announcement of Tipperary’s managerial plans for 2016 and beyond over the weekend is quite a statement of intent.

While tomorrow night's county board meeting will rubber-stamp the return of Eamon O'Shea for the 2015 season, it is the anointment of Michael Ryan as his immediate successor that jumps out.

While hardly unheard of – Kieran McGeeney was always being lined up to take over from Paul Grimley in Armagh, albeit unofficially – it is unusual for the just-defeated All Ireland finalists to tip their hand so far in advance.

Manner

Ryan, who has been a selector now under both O’Shea and Liam Sheedy, admits that he didn’t see it coming – at least not in this manner.

“I won’t say to you that it was always something I wanted to do, because it wasn’t,” he says. “But it has become that for me, without a doubt. Everything goes back to when we started with Liam [Sheedy] and if you’d asked me in those days, I would have said the idea of managing Tipp just held nothing for me.

“I was just delighted to be involved and to try to help. But it has evolved and I’ve just been there so long now that it’s the natural next step. From that perspective, I’m very excited about it. But look, being honest, I’m parking it. It’s not for now. For now, our job is to concentrate on 2015 and we’ve made some changes for that.”

When some doubts emerged in recent weeks over O’Shea’s appetite for giving it another year, the prospect of someone being groomed to take over from him was given voice. In reality, the list of names for such a role wouldn’t have stretched too far beyond Ryan. An All-Ireland winner himself in 1991, he has been front and centre throughout O’Shea’s reign.

“Eamon had said it to me before, asked would I do it after him. And I said, no. It just wasn’t on the cards for me. Most of all, I would have been very conscious of going, ‘Look, this is Eamon’s gig. I don’t want to detract from anything here, let’s stay on course for what we’re trying to achieve.’

“But in fairness, the county board were the ones who pushed us on it. This was a county board initiative. I will admit to you that, yes, I wanted a shot at it. But I was absolutely willing to be one of the five or six names who got thrown into the hat when Eamon eventually created a vacancy. I wasn’t trying to have it pre-ordained.

“But the county board’s feeling on it was that they didn’t want to arrive at a situation whereby Eamon would come to the end and there would be no continuity at all. They wanted continuity. And I’ll be honest, by the time it was put to me, I had come around to it.”

Joining O’Shea’s backroom team next year will be Declan Fanning, wing-back on the 2010 All-Ireland-winning team. Ryan says they felt it was important to bring in a voice from the next generation, to bridge any gap there might be to the players. Next year will, Ryan concedes, be an odd situation, with players taking their lead from both their current and future bosses. But he doesn’t foresee any huge difficulties.

Confusion

“We spoke about this, Eamon and I in particular. We talked about the prospect of some confusion creeping in. I mean, it won’t be the same, there’s no point saying it will. Look, titles mean nothing to any of us but it will feel a little different for sure. There could be a bit in players’ minds going, ‘Eamon is the boss but Mick is a bit more relevant now.’

“I don’t care in the slightest obviously. It has never impacted on me or on anyone, what title fellas have. As long as you are talking some sense and adding to the collective, the boys don’t give a damn who you are. It doesn’t matter. But we won’t be trying to add any more layers to this thing.

“The hierarchical stuff is just for clarity – Eamon is the boss and he remains the boss. But we’re very much a collective.”