Tipperary’s Jason Forde primed for championship start

One year on and Jason Forde still has slightly mixed feelings about the last time Tipperary played Limerick. There he was, the fresh-faced 19-year-old, willing and keen for his senior championship debut as Tipperary headed towards the Gaelic Grounds for the Munster hurling semi-final.

Except Forde’s face was actually as white as a sheet, every ounce of his energy replaced by a horrible nauseous feeling: it wasn’t mere nerves, however, as he’d actually been up most of the night before, being physically sick. Still, Forde got on to the team bus that Sunday morning, but didn’t have to think too long before reluctantly informing manager Eamon O’Shea.

“I’d a bad stomach bug the night before,” he says. “I got on to the bus that morning all right, but then went up to Eamon and just told him . . . he said there was no chance for me, that I’d only last a few minutes. So they pulled the plug there and then.

Big disappointment “That was a bit of a disaster. For something like that to happen was a big blow, and a huge disappointment. I’d only played bits of games in the league, but this was to be my first championship start. It was a big, big thing for me, to have it taken away, through illness.”

Yet there may have been some minor consolation as Tipperary were then taken out by Limerick. So at least Forde’s debut championship start didn’t end up being a losing one – not yet anyway. Tipp were well up, 1-13 to 1-9, after 50 minutes, before Limerick stepped up another gear, outscoring them nine points to two in the time that remained.

“We had the chances to win the game,” says Forde. “We missed a few chances in the first half, and maybe our intensity wasn’t up to Limerick’s. These games always come down to small things. But . . . Going on a game from last year is irrelevant in a way.”

Indeed things have changed – the finger of form now pointing back in Tipperary’s direction, after their slow but ultimately impressive run to the league final, where they narrowly lost out to Kilkenny after extra time. Limerick, meanwhile, after failing once again to secure promotion from Division 1B, lost co-manager Donal O’Grady after a county board dispute, leaving a big question mark over their championship preparations.

Not that Tipperary are expecting any less of a challenge. Limerick probably should have beaten them in 2012, too, and as reigning Munster champions, there is no chance of them going down without a fight.

Unlikely starter Forde, now 20, is still waiting to make that first championship start. He did come on as a substitute in the subsequent qualifier defeat to Kilkenny in Nowlan Park

and was in and out of the starting team throughout Tipperary’s recent league campaign. Truth is he’s unlikely to get a start in Thurles on Sunday, either, as O’Shea looks set to keep faith with the team that pushed Kilkenny so hard in the league final.

“The last few games have seen the team . . . settled all right. I played well in a good few games in the league, but there’s fierce competition for places. That’s always good. It’s going to be really hard to get on the team. It’s such a competitive environment and you have to take any chance you get.”

It wasn’t without some pain that Tipperary eventually gained winning momentum during the league. And Forde looks back on their spring campaign with slightly mixed feelings, knowing that outright league victory was their’s for the taking.

“Moral victories aren’t any good to us,” he says. “We’ve been close to Kilkenny over the last few years, but at the end of the day when you don’t win, it’s disappointing.

“And we are getting closer. The next time we get in that position, we want to get over the line. We want to take the lessons from the league and improve . . . What we were doing on the training field during the week wasn’t coming out on the pitch on a Sunday . . . Eventually the wheels turned, we got the results, and the supporters rowed in behind us again.”