Noel McGrath loving life and hurling

​By Paul Keane

When Noel McGrath burst onto the inter-county scene with Tipperary, winning an All-Star award in his debut season of 2009, he was still a teenager.

He hadn't even turned 20 the following year when he picked up his first All-Ireland senior medal.

"I'd just started college in UCD," he smiled.

Precisely a decade and a half on, the Loughmore-Castleiney man is now the proud owner of four senior medals, his latest collected on Sunday a few months shy of his 35th birthday.

John Doyle is still out in front as the Tipperary man with the most medals, a whopping eight, picked up between 1949 and 1965. Then comes Jimmy Doyle, on six, with a larger group on five. And after that it's McGrath, truly a Premier County icon.

But he's not a teenage student anymore, far from it. These days McGrath is a married man, and he and wife Aisling have a two-year-old boy, Sam, with another baby on the way in October. He's busy in the day job too with an animal health company, liaising with vets around Munster.

"It's a different story to 2009 and 2010 but it's great and I love it and to be able to have my son there on Sunday was probably one of the greatest things that I could have done, getting to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup with him in my arms," said McGrath, who understood the significance of collecting a fourth medal.

"There's no point saying that I didn't know that if we won, getting to four was the first time since '65 or '71 that someone had done it. I live hurling and I know a lot about the history of Tipperary so I would have been aware of that and now that it's happened, sure it's a great feeling and I'm delighted to be one of those with four medals.

"There's a lot of lads with three and a few with two, and more who won their first on Sunday, so to be in that category with four is unreal."

The ultra experienced forward came on in the second-half of Sunday's whirlwind 15-point win over Munster neighbours Cork, making his 79th Championship appearance. And when he wrapped up the day's scoring with the final point deep into stoppage time, it brought his career takings to 5-189 in the Championship.

So where to from here, another year with Tipp in 2026 perhaps?

"There's no point in me saying here now what I know I'm going to do," said McGrath. "I'd love to stay playing forever but I know that can't happen. We'll see in time. I'll go back to the club and see how that goes over the next few months."

After so long at the coalface of the game, alongside his brother John for most of the last decade, and with a third brother, Brian, making his senior debut in 2021, it is not so much a question of physical fitness as mental fitness for Noel.

"If you're willing to put in the work, you'll get your body right," he said. "It's the head more than anything. You have to be willing to get yourself up and to go training every week. That's probably the hardest part - if you're able to do that. And if you're mentally able to do it.

"But mentally, I've been really, really enjoying it. I never really had that evening where you're dragging yourself out to training. You'd be looking forward to it and that for me is the part that really keeps you going, that you're not feeling it as a drag.

"I enjoyed every minute of it. When you have an ending like we've had this year, it's hard not to enjoy it."

McGrath started the Munster championship game against Clare but was generally an impact sub for Tipp, coming on in six of their games.

"I'd love to be starting but there's 38 lads on our panel that would all love to start too, you have to trust the management that what they're deciding is the right thing for the team," he said.

The three-time All-Star, and former team captain, had himself primed and prepared to come on in a tight game. He didn't expect Tipp to be lording it and to be eight points clear upon his arrival, almost doubling that advantage by full-time.

"No, sure how could you?" he said. "How could you think that that was going to be something that would happen but it was great to be able to do it. The boys that were on the field had a massive job done up to that.

"The second-half performance was unbelievable, so to be able to come into that was enjoyable. I was just mad to get on the field, like everyone else, and when you're asked to go in you just do what you can."

Sharing the occasion with his brothers - John scored 2-2 while Brian was an unused sub - just made it all the more sweet. Perhaps the sweetest of all his MacCarthy Cup wins?

"Right now it is because you're in the moment and it's such a great feeling," said McGrath. "But who knows which is the best one, it's hard to decide which is the best or whether one is better than the other. They're all great. They all have their own different stories and their own different meanings."

Maybe he'll make it five yet.

"We'll see, we'll see," smiled McGrath. "I'd love it but we'll have to wait and see what happens. I'd love to be able to give it a go and have a rattle off it next year again but, as I said, we'll go back to the club over the next few months and we'll battle it out against each other there and see what happens."