Liam Sheedy believes that Tipp’s Club 19-30 must work in harmony if they’re to reap All-Ireland success tomorrow.
Sheedy points to the fact that the Premier set-up has three age groups that bring their own unique components to the party to make the Tipp machine run smoothly.
There’s the old guard who were young guns when he was in charge the first time up to nine years ago, such as Padraic Maher, Noel McGrath, Seamus Callanan and Brendan Maher.
At the other end, there’s the current young guns. Last year’s All-Ireland under-21 title winners Ger Browne, Willie Connors, Jake Morris and Mark Kehoe were all called upon to get Tipp over the line against Wexford in the semi-final.
In fact Morris, Paddy Cadell and Jerome Cahill are all involved in the senior and under-20 set-ups seeking All-Ireland glory over the next week.
And in between there’s a core group in their mid to late 20s - figures like Brian Hogan, Cathal Barrett, Dan McCormack, John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer and Seamus Kennedy who are also crucial to the cause.
“Overall in any group of players, having a group that older and mature, having a crop that is really young and then having a group in the middle really adds to the overall mix because you’re getting a really nice blend of youth and experience, and that’s what we have,” insisted Sheedy.
“My main job is to try and gel the three groups into one overall group and thankfully we have done that over the last couple of months.
“They needed to be a tight knit group to get themselves over the line because they had to really push themselves over that finish line (against Wexford).
“Some of the passages of play in those last few minutes...it came from the likes of Brendan Maher from the older group winning that last free, Brian Hogan in the middle group pucks it down and then, from the younger group, Jake Morris catches the ball and put it over the bar.
“All of them have gelled in well together and are working well with each other”.
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