Tipperary football moving ‘in the right direction’ says captain Paudie Feehan

While Tipperary football can look to the future with optimism with so many young players in the senior panel, they “don’t want to forget about the here and now either”.

That’s the view of captain Paudie Feehan, ahead of this Sunday’s Munster Senior Football Championship quarter-final against Waterford at Cappoquin Logistics Fraher Field in Dungarvan (2pm).

“We want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward and that we’re getting consistency and building week to week,” he says.

“We can see it over the next couple of years but we want more success now. It won’t be too much good to me in a couple of years. I want to make sure we’re putting our best foot forward now and we’re making progress as quickly as possible”.

A veteran of the team that famously won the Munster championship in 2020, when he was introduced as a second half substitute when they beat Cork in the final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the Killenaule player says there’s plenty of motivation in the camp to return to those dizzy heights once more.

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“That’s the thing with young players coming in, and the quality that they have, you can see that things are going in the right direction again. Hopefully we can use their quality and use what’s in the group at the moment as well to get back to those heights, and hopefully that’s where we want to go”.

Sunday’s match comes at the end of a disappointing league campaign in which Tipperary failed to gain promotion from Division 4, and just three weeks after they defeated Waterford by 4-19 to 0-18 in Thurles in their final game.

“It was disappointing at the end of the league, we aimed to get promoted at the start of the year and we didn’t do that,” he says.

“We performed poorly for 30 minutes against Wicklow, but we were pretty consistent. We only lost two games and one of them was one we should have won, against Carlow at FBD Semple Stadium.

“It was a lot more consistent from us and a lot of progress from last year, but ultimately we didn’t get promoted, which is where we wanted to be”.

He doesn’t subscribe to the notion that another season in Division 4 won’t do the emerging talent any harm.

“I would rather play in Division 3 rather than another season in Division 4 with young players. You can play those young fellows in Division 3. They have unbelievable quality and they’ve shown that throughout the league. They have been some of our standout performers and we want to go on an upward trajectory now. That's where we want to be, we want to be playing at higher grades and playing better teams, to develop players quicker and get us where we want to be.

“A lot of the group came in with (former manager) Philly Ryan at the end of last year. So that was great for them, and to get used to the environment a bit quicker. When we came back last November they were already used to it. The quality really has gone up and you can see that from a lot of the players. A lot of them have Sigerson medals in their pockets and they’re coming in with more of a pep in their step, and the quality has gone up massively in the last year.

“They have been great since they came in. They give you great energy and confidence that for the next couple of years we’re going to be on an upward trajectory. And that’s where we want to be, we want to get back up to those levels, and there’s no reason why we can’t, with the quality of players we have in the group”.

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Former Under 20 boss Niall Fitzgerald was thrown in at the deep end as senior manager last November, following the sudden passing of Philly Ryan the previous month.

“Niall Fitzgerald has been brilliant,” says Paudie Feehan. “A lot of the younger players know the manager and it gives them confidence that they can get in the team and they know their abilities. He has been really good. It was obviously a tough way for him to start as senior manager, but he has been great since he came in”.

Is Philly Ryan still to the forefront of their minds as a group?

“He was a massive part of the group and he left a big hole in the dressing room. He’s always at the front of your mind, especially when we played Leitrim this year in Clonmel. It was our first time back playing in Clonmel since his passing and they were the last team we played when he was manager. We spoke about it a bit that week, about putting in a performance in Clonmel that he would have been proud of, and I think that was one of our best performances of the year”.

Tipperary have won four of their last five championship meetings with Waterford, and a win on Sunday would earn them a semi-final against Cork or Limerick on April 25.

However, they’re not counting any chickens before Sunday.

“We just need to focus on Waterford,” says the captain.

“We played Waterford in the stadium a few weeks ago, and we just need to make sure that all the issues that we had in that game we’re working on them, and we’ll take it game by game from there”.