'Philly Ryan will never leave our thoughts,' says manager of Tipperary football champions

Former Clonmel Commercials player and mentor Philly Ryan, who died recently, was on everyone’s mind throughout Saturday’s County Senior Football Championship final, when his club beat Kilsheelan/Kilcash.

Speaking after his team had won their 22nd senior title to put them on top of the county’s senior roll of honour, Commercials manager Tommy Morrissey stated “Philly is, in my eyes, Mr Commercials. He gave me the passion to do what I’m doing, he gave me the encouragement to do what I’m doing, and he’ll always be in my thoughts. It’s just heartbreaking he’s not here with us, but we certainly did it for him today”.

When asked if there was much said about the former Tipperary manager in the dressing room before the game, Tommy replied

“Nothing. Philly will never leave our thoughts. I certainly don’t have to remind anyone. It has been an extremely difficult three weeks for everybody involved, the lads have Philly completely on their mind the whole time, so it was a just a case of making sure we were composed and that we were here to play a game of football. When the result goes in our favour, we can then acknowledge Philly and all he has done for us.

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“You have to be careful with emotion too, that you don’t let it take you over and make wrong decisions, and that includes management. It was something that we spoke about and none of us were forgetting Philly for a second. We just needed to make sure that we won a football match”.

He said that facing Upperchurch/Drombane in the semi-final the previous weekend was “extremely difficult”.

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He said, “I won’t lie, I found myself walking the dog last Saturday morning and I was wondering what it was all about. I found myself in a very difficult headspace, just trying to contemplate going out to play a game of football, and everything it was about.

“Having gotten over that, I knew the group were in the same headspace, and they got through that as well. That was a massive hurdle for us”.

Reflecting on the final, he said “We had a lot of possession in the first half, we just needed to be patient with it. In the second half I knew we would open them up, we have a lot of work done on fitness, and with the bench and the subs to come in. Once the opportunities came, we got the scores.

“We were disappointed with the Kilsheelan goal, we just left the middle completely open, and it’s not like us. So while the scoreboard only showed three points in it at half-time, I was confident with what we had scored in the first half.

“You have players like Michael Quinlivan and Seamus Kennedy, up the middle of the team, and they talk the younger players through. That’s huge, that’s something that you just can’t introduce, that’s developed over the years. Since 2012 they’ve been up in this stadium lifting county titles, and they know exactly what it takes to get over the line.

“Unfortunately, and I know it can be a funny statement in sport, you do have to lose one to win one, and the experience Kilsheelan will get from today is massive. As Seamus (Kennedy, the captain) said in his speech, they’re an extremely young side, they’re coming and I hope they do come because Tipp football needs it”.

He said that Commercials’ newly-found status as the club with the most senior football titles in the county is “a bonus, we’re a football club. There’s only ourselves and Ardfinnan in the county that are sole football clubs. And for us to be top of that pile now, the work that has been done over the last 15 years with juveniles and development, it’s coming to fruition now, we’re there, and it’s going to take a lot to take it off us”.