Do you recall Brian Kilmartin one of the main protagonist in the novel Famine by Liam O’Flaherty?

Of course you do!

Haven’t we all read it at some stage?

But if by chance you haven’t read it, then stick the kettle on, make yourself a cuppa tay, I’ll tell you where I’m going with this.

Brian Kilmartin was a man who worked hard all his life and compared to some of his neighbours, the Kilmartin’s were doing ok for themselves before the famine hit.  However, Brian was old school and stubbornly believed that the old customs had to be followed whether they could afford them or not. He resisted the ideas of his new daughter-in-law Mary Gleeson, who, as soon as she got her feet under the table in the Kilmartin household, wanted to change almost everything. What transpired was a struggle between the old and the new, until eventually, as the famine takes its grip, Brian realises that the old ways will no longer cut the mustard.

Bill Maher scores Tipperary’s second goal last year

In many ways Liam Kearns reminds me of Brian Kilmartin. He has worked extremely hard since he got the Tipperary job and has made our footballers relatively well to-do. But, if recent underage results are anything to go by, there is a famine on the way. At senior level we are totally dependent on our current crop. Steps need to be taken to ensure we have a back-up crop. The Football Committee have put together a Strategic Plan that needs to be implemented and not left lying around the place like those endless HSE reports we hear about.

The best way to stop the famine arriving is to ensure that our senior team are playing at the top level which will make it attractive for younger players to strive to play football for Tipperary.

Liam Kearns must now realise that things will have to change for us to survive or indeed to move to the next level. We have lost a lot of leads over the past few years and some in important matches. In the league last year we squandered big leads against Roscommon, Clare and Cavan which means that we enter this year’s league in Division 2 rather than were we deserve to be, which is Division 1.

I’m hoping that our new coach Martin Horgan will be our Mary Glesson and will bring new ideas to our defensive set up because as Einstein told us, to continue to do the same things and expect different results would be madness.

Brian Fox in action

You may recall in the novel  that Mary Gleeson dreamed of a ship with great white sails that would take her to America. When she got to the port in Galway, the ship had old brown sails but it got her to America none the less.  Sometimes I think the Tipperary Footballers dream of reaching the promised land in a ship with great white sails but this year when we are sailing down the strait, I would like to see us lower those white sails and raise the dirty old brown ones. We don’t always have to look pretty and besides beauty is in the eye of the result.

Promotion this year means we would be playing Division 1 football in 2020 and how appropriate that would be. The game against Dublin in 2020 will be a fitting tribute to Michael Hogan, Daniel Carroll and James Teehan, the three Tipperary men who were murdered along with eleven others by Crown Forces 100 years previously on Bloody Sunday in Croke Park.

Michael Quinlivan scores a goal last year against Meath

Of course, for all that to happen, Tipperary footballers will need the help of the Tipperary public. The old and infirm will be excused so they can tune into Tipp FM for commentary. But all able-bodied Tipperary Gaels should make a special effort to attend the Tipperary footballers home league games this year. As Mary Gleeson told the older folk “We won’t get anything by sitting on our backsides”.

Better still, if you are involved in coaching underage players, put them on a bus and get them over to Semple Stadium to see players like Evan Comerford, Bill Maher, Brian Fox, Jack Kennedy, Liam McGrath, Conor Sweeney and Michael Quinlivan in action. Watching these lads play will be better than ten coaching sessions for those young lads.