Campbell: 'The connection is strong'
The Tipperary Footballers have had the season of their lives and defender Alan Campbell has been talking to GAA.ie about how he got started in the big ball game, the influence of a local All-Star and the years of work that has gone into Tipperary's current success.
By Cian O'Connell
The Tipperary football journey continues so Alan Campbell is delighted by the significant strides that have been taken in the past decade.
Tipperary haven’t contested an All Irelland SFC Semi-Final in 81 years, but Campbell feels that the work carried out by John Evans, Peter Creedon, and Liam Kearns shouldn’t be underestimated. “For me anyway, and I think most of the lads would say the work started back six or seven years ago with John Evans,” Campbell admits.
“He got the lads up to Division 2 and that kind of got the ball rolling. Peter Creedon did great work as well. We reached the last 12 twice with him and it was just another step to get to maybe the last aspect right, or the next aspect right, so Liam certainly has brought in a good backroom staff as well. It's very professional, it always was, and luckily he's got us to the next step this year.
“We're trying to get up the divisions in the league because we believe that will help our Championship performance. We do put emphasis in the league, we're trying to get promoted out of Division. Obviously Championship is nice and it's played in the summer, but for us we put importance in every game.”
The Quarter-Final brought wild scenes of jubilation for Tipperary’s loyal pocket of football followers. "It was a great feeling after the Galway game,” Campbell recalls.
“We got to stay on the pitch for an extra few minutes after and all the fans came around. A lot of them were our families and we knew them so we enjoyed those few minutes and the next few days it was a good feeling and there was a great buzz around the county, but I suppose it's not quick to fade away it's refocus on the next day. The county is focusing on the hurling again so that's a positive. It will be our turn this week.
"They do so much work for us. A lot of them are the Friends of Tipperary football, an organisation that fundraises and does so much work for us. We are very grateful to them and they have been supporting us for so many years and then they're the families as well so the connection is strong.”
Alan Campbell following the win over Galway.
This will be Mayo’s sixth appearance at the penultimate stage in as many years, and Campbell is aware of the threat they carry. “Mayo have no shortage of stars,” is Campbell’s assessment. “If we try to focus all on Cillian O'Connor then they'll have another lad ready and waiting to do the scoring so we have to get the balance right and focus on all of their players.
“Lee Keegan was scoring from defence as well so we can't get hung up on any one player in particular. They're all high quality players so we'll just have to try and work on a system to nullify them and get scores ourselves.
“I suppose every game is taken on its own merits. They were playing Tyrone who would be traditionally more defensive so I suppose they had to match up, but I think they brought Alan Dillon out as well to try to counteract that.
“Mayo played against Tyrone with set special tactics for that so I don't know what they're going to do for us. When they played Galway it was kind of defensive as well, but if they are defensive then we'll just have to try to break that down. Derry did something similar and Galway as well and we managed to break that down so Mayo could be the same story again.”
In Campbell’s club, Moyle Rovers, Declan Browne remains an inspiration. “He's a club mate of mine, I played probably two years with him at club level," Campbell remembers.
“He's like the face of Tipp football for so many years. He's a great influence and he's been in with us training the forwards a few times. He shows what can be done.
“He won two All Stars without ever playing in an All-Ireland quarter-final which is an amazing feat like, it shows the quality he had. He was always fighting square and front for Tipp football and probably inspired a lot of the lads that are playing today.
“It was amazing even marking him in training. He was coming towards the end of his career, but it didn't matter. The quality was there and it was evident for everyone to see. I'm just thankful I did get to share the pitch with him a few times.”
