By John Harrington

Tipperary corner-back Cathal Barrett is confident his recent ankle surgery won’t keep him side-lined for long.

The 2016 All-Star currently has his lower leg in a cast, but is hopeful he’ll be back in action in time for the start of Tipperary’s 2017 Allianz Hurling League campaign.

“Ah I just got ligaments done, been needing it there for a while,” said Barrett yesterday at the launch of the GAA’s new Membership Card and rewards programme, GRMA (go raibh maith agat), yesterday.

“It was the only time of the year I could get it done so yeah, ah should be fine in the next four or five weeks,” said Barrett.

“I've had it for the last year or two, it's something that's been coming and going. the night before training (Tipperary physio) Paddy (O’Brien) would have you doing strengthening work to keep it some way stable and sure you'd be strapping it the whole time as well.

“You'd be constantly doing something with it, especially in the winter months because you could get caught in the ground and go over on it and damage it more.

“I've gone over on it a couple of times in the last few years. Then I badly done it in the first few minutes against Galway so I said that was the final straw for me, I had to do something about it.

“I've kind of hurt it in every game throughout the year so it was kind of getting progressively worse. It eventually kind of took its toll on it. I probably needed to get something done so it was the time for it.”

That ankle injury hasn't stopped Barrett making a tremendous impact in a short period of time as an senior inter-county hurler.

In the space of three years he has won a Young Hurler of the Year Award, an All-Star Award, one All-Ireland title and two Munster titles.

He’s worked hard to establish himself as one of the best defenders in the country, and winning his first Celtic Cross this year and the celebrations that followed it in Tipperary made it all feel worthwhile.

“It was my first so it was a bit special for me,” he says. “The pictures said it all, there was over 34, 35,000 people in Semple Stadium, the place was buzzing for weeks, still is.

“Everyone is still talking about the All-Ireland, it's fantastic for Tipp. We'd been close enough, a point or two on a couple of occasions and they're hard to take.

“When you finally get over the line it's a sense of relief at the final whistle. The following few weeks after it are great, go to meet your family and friends and have a bit of craic and the homecomings.

“We went back to Borris-Ileigh for Brendan (Maher) and Paddy (Stapleton) and Dan (McCormack) and that was fantastic, a massive crowd and everyone got to mingle away so it was a great few weeks.”

If you were a Tipperary player or supporter, it was the perfect way to win an All-Ireland Final. Their successfully defended their Munster title, and then in the All-Ireland Final comprehensively beat a Kilkenny team they had suffered so much against in the previous five years.

Barrett believes they finally delivered on their potential because they adopted such as single-minded approach to the campaign.

“The way we set out at the start of the year, we had our aims,” says Barrett. “We were focused first and foremost on Cork. That was the first step.

“And after that, it was Limerick. We didn’t really set our sights any further than that because, to be honest, Tipp have been a victim of that before.

“They maybe set their sights a little too far in the past and kinda got caught.

“So this year, Mick (Ryan) just set the first hurdle as Cork. We just took it as it came. We just put in as much work as we could.

“We didn’t look past any team. Galway was a massive, massive test. If we look past Galway, they probably would have turned us over. So that just shows...

“But it was great. Probably our best game was in the final. That’s what you want. So we peaked. But the lads had put in place…every couple of months we were hitting certain goals and targets.

“You want to peak. I think that’s more credit to the back room team and the management in that regard, more than anything else.”

Now that Tipperary have finally climbed back to the top of the hurling pile they want to stay there for as long as possible.

They haven’t managed to put back to back All-Irelands together since 1964/65, and Barrett insists everyone in the camp is determined to build on this year’s success rather than fall back to the pack like they did after their 2010 All-Ireland Final victory.

“Yeah, absolutely, well I suppose it was a six-year gap. In Tipperary you want to be winning it every year so six years is a long time so I think this year they really hit home how these things don't happen very often and you need to take it as much as you can.

“Your career doesn't last too long. They really said that, they really realise what it means. Look, there's a great maturity in our panel, we're not resting on our laurels after one year.

“We're parking this year and looking to next year and giving it another rattle again.”

If you were to judge their respective merits purely on the All-Ireland Final, you would say Tipperary are better equipped to challenge for silverware than Kilkenny in the coming years.

But Barrett is adamant that the Cats remain the team to beat and isn’t about to write them off any time soon.

“You hear one or two people saying Kilkenny are finished but if you remember 2010, I remember hearing that Kilkenny were on the way down and they’ve won three All-Ireland since then,” he says.

“So I don’t think you could ever write them off. In my opinion, Kilkenny are still the benchmark. Next year, they’re still the team to watch out for.

“They’re after winning how many All-Irelands in the last 10 years? They’re still an unbelievable team. Just because they lost one All-Ireland doesn’t make them a bad team over night.

“It doesn’t mean they’re on the way down. But obviously, it does give us a bit of an incentive to maybe push on and get a few more All-Irelands.

“But we have to look forward to next year first.”