Brendan Cummins - Keeper of the faith

Tipperary have contested the last two All-Ireland finals against Kilkenny as underdogs, but following last September’s epic win, the dynamic has changed and it is the Premier County who must shoulder the burden of favouritism.

A win in Sunday’s final would give Tipperary their first back-to-back All-Ireland titles since 1964-’65, a considerable chasm given the Cats have necklaced four in a row as recently as 2009.

Four of the current Tipperary squad – John O’Brien, Eoin Kelly, Lar Corbett and Brendan Cummins – were around when Tipperary attempted to defend their title in 2002.

Tipperary were well beaten in the Munster final and were dethroned by Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final.

Cummins, aged 36, Tipperary’s most senior player, cringes when he watches videos of the 2002 season.

As the elder statesman of Tipperary hurling you might think he has an avuncular role to play in imparting his experience to the younger squad members, but the Ballybacon-Grange netminder feels there were more personal lessons to be learned.

“I remember looking at myself in the 2002 Munster final and I looked like a panda bear inside in the goals to be honest. I was totally out of shape. I can recognise that now,” he says.

“You can talk to players but it has to start with yourself. This year I made a real emphasis to be fitter than I had ever been playing. When I look at myself in this All-Ireland final, whatever way it goes, I can say ‘You were fit enough anyway.’

“That’s something I learned from ’02. We had, subconsciously I suppose, been happy with what we had done, but I think the group of players we have now have had Minor and U21 success. They have been brought up under the shadow of Kilkenny winning so much and they want a piece of the action.

“They have great enthusiasm so I don’t really need to drive too much. They are the ones driving me now. It’s a slightly different group. Underage success has been a huge help for the group we have now to drive them to Senior. We didn’t have that in 2001.”

Facing into the fifth All-Ireland final of his career (1997, 2001, ’09, 2010), and his third in a row, the experience is far from humdrum given the long periods Cummins spent as an outsider looking in on the first Sunday in September.

“I had between 2001 and 2009 only watching the thing so it is great excitement,” he says. “It’s where we all wanted to be and the whole country was looking from the outside saying it was going to be a Tipp and Kilkenny final.

"But on the inside, stuck in all the battles, it’s a great sense of satisfaction to know that we have it in the tank to get back to this stage again, which hasn’t been a familiar spot for Tipperary to show consistency. This group of players has which is massive."

For once, Tipperary go into an All-Ireland final stalked by expectation. And yet, Cummins feels they will face an even greater test of character than last year when Kilkenny were hobbled by injuries.

“I know what Kilkenny felt like last year even though they were going for real serious history. Tipp too not having two in a row in 50, 60 years. There is pressure going into a final, everyone will give you all the stats.

“We all feel that it is a great opportunity to win a medal and one that might not come around again so we have to really focus on the job at hand and prepare yourself as well as you did every other year, and a bit better because I think this year is going to take a bigger push to beat Kilkenny.

“They don’t have that weight of history on their shoulders. They have a full strength team this year, no injuries, nothing like that. No distractions I suppose they would call them. And a good lead-up game against Waterford and Dublin. Everyone has to be all guns blazing.”

When he thinks back to last year and the media circus that attended Kilkenny’s preparations, Cummins admits that the Cats must have been under incredible pressure to deliver.

“There was 12 or 13,000 people watching training in all fairness. If Manchester United opened Old Trafford they mightn’t have that many. It’s huge pressure on amateurs, pressure I suppose they brought on themselves with their success," adds Cummins, who will make his 67th Championship appearance for his county on Sunday.

“That’s what goes with success and Tipp players have seen that over the last 12 months, the kind of hype that is around winning an All-Ireland and we only won one. Imagine winning four in a row and going for five. Imagine the pressure that brings.

Tipperary, in contrast, were protected from the hype that had been deflected onto their opponents.

“I looked around the stands in Thurles and no one in them and thought this is the best way to prepare. You want to keep it as low key as possible going into these games and Kilkenny to be fair to them the weight of expectation was on them because they were so successful. That’s par for the course I suppose.

“We had been three years building to try to get to that moment. It all clicked on the day, we got a few breaks and that was it.

“I work in Kilkenny so you could hear that there was crowds and trouble parking and every customer saying, ‘Jesus I couldn’t get into training the other night. It was mobbed.’ There wasn’t the same hysteria with Tipp people.

“In fairness, I don’t think it was Kilkenny people. It was bus loads coming down from the north and other non traditional hurling counties coming to see what the magic ingredient was in Kilkenny. That’s fair enough too. We didn’t have any of that which is fine.”

Cummins, meanwhile, is determined that there will be no repeat of 2002. In years to come when he looks back at the video of Sunday’s final at least he will be able to say that he was 100 per cent prepared.

He has added more strings to his bow and feels that the intense rivalry with Kilkenny and the new heights Tipperary have reached as a result have brought about an improvement in his game in the autumn of his career.

“I feel that I have added a few more things to my game thanks in no small part to Eamonn O’Shea (former Tipperary trainer), who really opened up my mind to what can be done.

“People will say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but Eamonn managed to do that, especially around the puck out side of the game that we have now.

"I said before that I never saw myself flicking short puck outs 20-30 yards. Before I was the long puck expert and my distribution was a huge question mark over me. But thanks to Eamonn we have worked on that because it is always evolving.

“You always like to think you are better, I certainly like to think that I am in good a physical shape as I have ever been and after that you have to let the whole thing flow.

“I don’t think I will ever get where I want to be but you always challenge yourself to be the best.”