Noel McGrath going to give it 'another rattle' with Tipp

Tipperary and Loughmore-Castleiney star, Noel McGrath, has been named this year's Gaelic Writers' Association Hurling Personality of the Year, proudly supported by Dalata Hotel Group.

Ahead of Friday evening’s Awards Dinner at the Clayton Hotel in Ballsbridge, McGrath reflected on what’s been an eventful year for both club and county.

Noel, your son Sam has been pucking around at a lot of games this year between Tipp and Loughmore-Castleiney, how important is that for you?

Noel McGrath: It’s lovely to be able to do it, to be honest. When he was born, bringing him to Croke Park was something I always thought would be a lovely thing to do and hoped for but we hadn’t been getting to Croke Park so you were wondering if you would ever be able to do it.

But the way the whole year turned out and to have him there both days in Croke Park was great. I suppose he won’t remember being out on the field or in the dressing room but myself and Aisling will. We have the photos to show him in the years to come and they’re great memories.

You weren’t born when your father Pat captained Loughmore-Castleiney to the Tipp SHC title in 1988. What are your earliest memories of your father as a hurler?

NM: There was a good few of us the same age growing up and we would have went to matches and training over the field with our fathers. I remember him playing senior hurling and football with Loughmore and he played senior until 2003 or 2004, I think. In 2005, I played a junior B football match with him so that was a nice thing to do as well. I’ve good memories of going to all those games.

Your cousin Liam McGrath was speaking about the number of guys building houses in the parish and raising families there. How important is that for the club?

NM: I’d say the vast majority of us are still around at home and there are others now too who are building in the parish and coming back after living away in Dublin, Cork, Galway or Limerick. It’s important because it’s hard to keep the numbers going all the time.

To have people living and building in the parish is a big plus and hopefully it will sustain the club over the next five, 10, 15 years. There’s good numbers of boys and girls there on a Saturday morning from four years of age up to 12.

Do Loughmore have to build on this purple patch for the club?

NM: You have to make the most of what you’ve got. You're not always going to be competing, you know. It comes in plenty of years where we were down and we weren’t getting to quarters, getting to semis and when you do get that far, God knows who will be competing and where some teams will be, you know, so you just make the most of it when you can and you try to do your best when you get the chance.”

Is there any standout reason why you’ve again been able to compete as strongly in both codes after doing the double last year?

NM: I know it's always said and that, but you just literally do have to just take the weekend ahead of you, go at that as best you can, prepare for it as best you can, and you wake up then on Sunday or Monday after your match and you see what's worried about what's coming for the next week. We've 35, 36, 37, that's training every night, everybody hoping to play whatever part they can and to push the thing on, like, and we've been competitive, I suppose, over the last five or six years every year. To be in that position is great and it's hard to get to these stages.

Does the old saying that the defeats stick with you the longest apply to you? You were distraught on the field after the 2020 hurling final.

NM: We lost both county finals that first Covid year, and we lost by such small margins, but the hurling, where we lost it, it was a devastating defeat, so yeah, they stick with you and I suppose that's maybe what drives you to go back and to try again and the disappointments.

In sport, you're going to have a lot more disappointing days than you have good, so when you get to experience good ones, you enjoy them and when you have the disappointing ones, I suppose, they're the ones to help you get the gear ready again come January or February the following year and to maybe to have a go at trying to fix that and to rise to disappointments that you've had and maybe try and turn that around the next year.

It's all part of sport and it's learning and when you get older, it doesn't make it easier, them defeats or that, but you're able to maybe process it a bit better and maybe figure out a way to get yourself on and keep moving.

So many influential people like your father Pat, uncle Frankie, Noel Morris, David Kennedy, Declan Laffan are in the club. How vital have they been to you, your brothers, cousins and this group?

NM: There’s a lot of people in our club that put a lot of time and effort and Eamonn Sweeney would have been the real driver of it when we were younger. He put hours and days and weeks and months and years into us, like, he gave us our foundation, really, when we were young, like, the time that he put into us is something that we'd be forever grateful for. He was a massive part of my career at the start and then ended up as a senior coach, senior manager, and then was involved in numerous titles that were won at all levels, all the way up from U12 to senior. There’s plenty of others as well, like you mentioned there, Noel Morris, Declan Laffan, Frankie, Paddy and Jimmy Hennessy, who would have put a lot of time into teams when we were maybe 17, 18, 19. Gave years to every minor team to U21 teams and it's when you're older you kind of appreciate that what they've done for you personally and for us as a club and as a team to help us to compete.

You sound extremely grateful for what they invested in you. Do you want to pay it back with Loughmore in the future?

NM: Our club isn't the only club that have people that put in that amount of time, but I know the time that they put in to us so I can be very grateful to them and whenever I do finish up that, I'd like to give it a try. How good you are at it or how much you can contribute, you just do your best and give what you can and you just don't know if it's something that you would be good at or not. We’ll see in a few years' time and I suppose you see even some of the lads now that I would have played with and some that are still playing and have kids going over on a Saturday morning and they're over there helping out and so that's where you start.

Just on Tipp, we spoke to Paudie Maher for his Laochra Gael early in the year and we asked him if Tipp’s proud record of winning an All-Ireland every decade was under threat. He felt it was but a lot of people were feeling that way. There must be great satisfaction in winning an All-Ireland when you’re not expected to, a bit like 2019?

NM: I think where we were at the time, to be fair, that was probably a fair assessment. We were so far from… it's always in your dreams and every day I go out as a player in a Tipperary jersey, I believe the team can win, so you're always thinking there is a chance here, there might be a chance, but you have to be realistic about things too and we needed to get our house in order. At that time in January, February, sure an All-Ireland and Tipperary weren't even being spoke about in the same bracket really, but the team just picked momentum and results can change things very quick and when we went to Galway and won the first round of the league and beat Wexford the following week, you had two from two fairly quick, so that builds confidence and builds belief in what was being done and the training and players that were getting on the pitch and how well they were doing. We were very consistent throughout the league apart from the league final. I know we lost to Limerick as well but you were performing, you were doing well every day, so that just grew the belief. We were well off last year, we were well on it this year and that's just down to a lot of factors, that's what you can't even put your finger on.

You gave a very emotional interview after losing to Limerick in 2022. Six or seven of that team are All-Ireland winners now - winners again or first-timers. That’s only three years ago yet Tipp were down in the dumps.

NM: Yeah, I have thought back to them days at different times. I’ve been lucky enough that in my first probably 10 or 12 years with Tipp we were competitive nearly every year. We weren’t always winning but we were in a good position every year and you always thought you had a right chance and then them few years there where we just weren't at the races. There's no other way of saying it and you're wondering how is this ever going to turn. That day in Limerick we showed great fight that day and we turned up but I still think we lost by seven or eight points, you know, and you're not going to be happy going home from any championship match losing by that. People being pleased with that was a weird feeling and one that didn't really sit well with me or wouldn't ever sit well with me so it was disappointing. But them days, when you look back after this year, are days that you learn a lot about yourself and about the team and lads that stuck at it and really grinded it out and stayed driving for the next two or three years when things weren't going well and this year then you got your just reward for that.

We’ve talked about feeling grateful. With your son Sam and daughter Aoibhín coming into your lives, do you think back to your health scare?

NM: Ah, sure I do, there's no point in saying I don't. There's so many stories around that you hear of and probably more that you don't even hear of, of people that are in tough situations. I'm 10 years out now, thank God and I do, like, sure, I'd have to be, there's no point in saying any different. I got into a hard situation that nobody wants to be in, but I'm lucky enough that it wasn't long-term, it was relatively short-term in a lot of ways compared to other people and I got well looked after and I was lucky that it was caught on time and I was able to get back to living a relatively, not a relatively, I got back to living a normal life and back to doing all the things I wanted to do. There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don't think of it in some way or another, but I'm just happy to be able to think about it and to be at this side of it now where I can enjoy myself and be grateful for it.

Final question – it’s all about Loughmore-Castleiney at the moment but have you made a decision about Tipp next season?

NM: We’ll explore more over the next few weeks and once that finishes up, whatever way it goes, I'll settle down for a couple of weeks and see how things are, as long as it’s good at home with the family and that. Look, all going well, I'd love to give it another rattle again, but at the moment we'll see how things play out, but the plan will be to go again and see what happens, but we'll fully decide come November, December time when things settle down a bit more.”