TIPPERARY'S MICHAEL RYAN:IN A way it's been a bit like his playing career. Michael Ryan's first season as a senior Tipperary hurler in 1991 ended up in September with an All-Ireland victory over Kilkenny.
Whereas he’s into the second year of his term as one of Liam Sheedy’s selectors, it’s still his first managerial involvement with a county team and already he finds himself back in an All-Ireland final against Kilkenny.
“I hadn’t done any management before,” he says when asked did the approach to join Sheedy surprise him. “I was and I wasn’t. When we had finished up – Liam and myself were broadly the same age and finished playing together in 2000 – the day after, which is a custom, you go for a few drinks to celebrate or cry or whatever.
“I overheard Liam saying at one stage that he’d like to manage the Tipp senior team and I leaned over and said: ‘Liam if you ever get that job, I’ll do it with you.’ Whether I had too much drink or he did, he rang me seven years later.”
Whereas he doesn’t feel the job makes 24/7 demands he does admit it dominates the thought processes outside of training and match duty. Having played in the successful Michael Keating era, Ryan was familiar with best practice in the field of team preparation.
“It has advanced and in fairness to Babs, he had some of the best trainers available involved with Tipp. It started with Phil Conway (Olympian field athlete) and his training methods were legendary. I only had a brief encounter with his methods when I was a 21. Then Liam Hennessy (now IRFU director of fitness) came in, in ’91, and he took it on again.
“Players are being constantly asked to go a bit further, but the level of commitment that guys have in terms of what they do with their down time is just so important.
“There’s no room for anything less than 100 per cent but I think the guys have realised as well that this is a window that’s open to them as much as it’s open to us as management and that it’s up to them to get as much out of it as they can.”
Facing a Kilkenny side on the verge of four-in-a-row the challenge is daunting despite the growing sense that Tipperary are assembling a side that will pose a significant challenge in the years ahead.
He knows that after his own first-season success he played in only one further final, in 1997, and won no more medals.
“You don’t know; tomorrow isn’t a promise to any of us. You don’t know when or if you’ll play in another All-Ireland final. But I don’t think you should emphasise that stuff too much.
“I just think you should emphasise to guys to enjoy it and, all things being equal, please God we’ll get another go at it, but, as I said, that’s a promise to nobody. I just think the emphasis has to be to live for the moment and enjoy that day.”
Michael Ryan
Club: Upperchurch-Drombane
Age: 39
Appointed selector: 2007
Player honours: All-Ireland SHC 1991, All-Ireland U21 1989, NHL 1994 and '99, Munster U21 1990, Munster MHC 1987.
