Liam Sheedy says he owed it to the bunch of players that changed his life to come back and manage Tipperary.
Sheedy’s first significant managerial achievement was to lead Tipp to the 2006 All-Ireland minor title, their first in a decade, and there is a core of players from that success that remain part of the senior set up today.
Padraic Maher, Brendan Maher, Michael Cahill, Seamus Callanan and Noel McGrath were among those that had graduated to the senior team by the time Sheedy masterminded the 2010 All-Ireland victory and are still on the books in his first year back in the hotseat, albeit Cahill is absent due to a long-term knee injury.
Sheedy said: “They transformed my life in 2010. They younger guys I had in 2006 as minors probably have a few years left in their careers so if I didn't come back and join this group now I probably wouldn't get a chance to work with those players I worked with across 2008-2010.
“So if I could have found the time, if there was any group I owed it to, they were really good to me previously.
“Michael Ryan is a close friend of mine and he gave nine out of the last 11 years, he had given everything he could as a player, selector and manager.
“When I sat down and spoke to him, he said if you can find the time, go do it. They are a good bunch and a good group of lads so that's where I found myself.
“All I said was I'd give it 100% and do everything I possibly could. I am really enjoying it because I have good people around me and players that really want to give their best for themselves and their county.”
Tipperary have certainly been the form team in the Championship ahead of Sunday’s Munster final against Limerick at the LIT Gaelic Grounds and Sheedy says he never had any doubt that they’d find their stride during a patchy League campaign.
“You got back through the matches, most of them were lost by a point. We had losing-by-a-point-itis there for a while and it wasn't a bad time to have it.
“We definitely didn't peak too soon but you felt there was something building because we had a lot of guys coming back from injury.
“There was a period there in the league where I wasn't sure had I 26 to tog out on a given day, that's how depleted my squad was. But behind the scenes the work they were doing to get themselves right was all the time moving at pace.
“Anything they have been challenged with and they have been challenged night in night out, week in week out, they relish and rise to the challenge and I think we are starting to see the benefits of it.”
Tipperary scored a four-point win over Limerick last Sunday week though Sheedy expects a very different challenge from the All-Ireland champions this time.
He added: “Momentum and winning matches I don't see as being a bad habit. Certainly we felt it was another opportunity to come back in front of our own home crowd and bring a performance again.
“In terms of what the opposition bring, everybody works out their own permutations in terms of what they want to play but I know that was a shadow of the Limerick team and we'll see a different Limerick team on Sunday.
“All we focus on is our own preparation and performance and that will be the same for Sunday.”
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