By John Harrington

Tipperary manager Michael Ryan isn’t worried that his Galway opposite Micheál Donoghue will have the inside track on the Premier County ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final.

Donoghue was a member of the Tipperary coaching staff for two years under former manager Eamon O’Shea before being appointed Galway manager late last year.

He had an intimate knowledge of Tipperary’s tactics in 2014 and 2015 and has worked with almost all of the current panel.

But Ryan still doesn’t believe he knows any secrets that could give Galway a vital edge in Sunday’s match.

“Are there any secrets?”, questioned Ryan. “Really and truly, we have been out three times and five or six times in the league. Are there any secrets about Tipperary really or any other team for that matter? I think the last surprise I got in hurling was Walter Walsh being parachuted in for an All-Ireland final, beyond that I have not seen them.

“There’s no rabbits to be pulled out of hats here. We have who we have. We have a very strong squad and our job will be to get that right on the day, put the right guys on the pitch and pick the right guys to come in and support that because, without doubt, this will be a twenty-man effort.”

Donoghue operated as both a coach and analyst during his two years with Tipperary, and Ryan admits he brought a lot of qualities to the table.

“I suppose he brought a different perspective, an external perspective on Tipp,” said Ryan. “He and Eamon (O’Shea) became close when he was manager of Clarinbridge and he got Eamon in to do some work with them and I think they remained friends after.

“That’s really where that connection was, but it just brought a breath of fresh air to our set-up and a different perspective - and, of course, he shared the journeys up and down with Eamon which was great for Eamon.

“A very good guy, Micheál Donoghue will always be a friend of us and this group in Tipp. We do wish each other well, but I don’t think we can do it this time around. I will wish him well, but I just hope he doesn’t win. And, that’s how it should be. People go and work with other counties and unfortunately you may just meet your own - it’s just a risk.”

There was just a point between these two teams in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, but that was mainly thanks to the goal-scoring heroics of Tipperary’s Seamus Callanan.

Galway dominated much of the general play and Tipperary struggled to match their intensity, but Ryan doesn’t agree with the suggestion that they were bullied physically.

“I don’t subscribe to the notion that one team bullies the other,” he said. “I think that they got to a level of intensity that we just didn’t match or couldn’t match. And, that’s the tragedy for us. But I think full credit to Galway - I would have been one of the people who fancied Galway, if they could reproduce that kind of intensity for seventy odd minutes, that they had a chance to win that All-Ireland.

“That’s a different conversation, but I really fancied them. I thought that was the best I had seen Galway play in a couple of years and they were very worthy winners on the day.

“We were the ones left soul searching as a result. I really admired their intensity, they got to a level that really set the bar for us in 2016 as to what we needed to reach and how we needed to evolve to get to that level.”

Since Ryan took charge of the team this year, it’s been very noticeable they have evolved in that manner and now consistently play with the sort of intensity and hard physical edge that was marked absent in that All-Ireland Semi-Final defeat to Galway last year.

In his own playing days with Tipperary, the Upperchurch-Drombane man was renowned for his take-no-prisoners style, and admits his priority was to get this Tipp team playing a steelier brand of hurling.

“In terms of bringing my own stamp to it what I would consider as different is that we are getting to the intensity levels,” says Ryan. “But that was crying out obvious - that was why we failed, that was one of the reasons why we failed in 2015.

“We had to get to that level of intensity. That has been something very measurable and something we put our store in. But I think it reflects the personality of not just me, I am the constant here, but there’s also John Madden, Declan Fanning, Conor Stakelum and there is also a wider backroom team supporting us.

“Very early we called it out that we had to get back to a more traditional game, that would compete with the new levels that were being set day in day out, particularly by Kilkenny. They are very consistent, but Galway were the ones that knocked us out that day. That was the tangible measure for us and we failed at that test.”

Tipperary had a full-blooded training-match amongst themselves in Thurles last Tuesday as part of their preparations for Sunday’s semi-final.

It was the last chance for a number of players to force their way into Ryan’s plans for the clash with Galway, so there was no holding back.

The quality of their bench for the Munster Final and the fact that John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer is now back in the mix after serving his suspension suggests Tipperary’s strength in depth is greater now than at any time in the recent past.

“From our perspective it’s great to have guys coming in and putting their hands up to get selected and to give us some choice. Will we have any changes for the next day? Maybe, yeah,” says Ryan.

“I think it’s a great sign of a team that it is evolving and that these guys are at that level. I think, at this stage of the year, that you don’t get as many surprises as you will for a first round, needless to say, but there is a very, very healthy bunch competing and competing every day to get a chance.

“And, it’s real, it’s absolutely real. It’s exactly what we want. We want that level of competition that we have got and it’s driving us. It’s the reason why the first fifteen are performing and why the first twenty are performing - it’s because they are being chased every single day at training. That is exactly how it needs to be."