THE appearance of green shoots in Tipperary helped to convince Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher it was time to bring an end to his days in blue and gold.
As a three-time All-Ireland SHC winner, the Lorrha-Dorrha half-forward played a prominent role in Tipp’s greatest days of the recent past.
Maher is an ambassador for the Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Championship[/caption]
And Maher, who retired from inter-county hurling last October, feels there is substance to the growing sense within the Premier County that the future is looking bright too.
Three weeks since their Under-20s were crowned All-Ireland champions, that belief would be vindicated by reaching a first senior semi-final in six years.
The All-Ireland Under-21 triumph of 2010 was an important launchpad for what Maher went on to achieve at the highest level.
Promising youngsters such as Darragh McCarthy, Oisín O’Donoghue and Sam O’Farrell are already making a similar transition now.
Maher said: “It’s great to see and there’s huge potential in that Under-20 squad to come up and get into that senior panel.
“From our perspective back in 2010, it was huge for us to get into the senior panel and get involved in senior games, so that will bring them on immensely as well.
“There’s a good few of them boys that I think will have a bright future and long careers ahead of them wearing a Tipperary jersey.”
For Maher, there was no fairytale ending as his swansong season was utterly wretched.
Liam Cahill’s men were dumped out of the Championship with a game to spare in the Munster round robin.
Just five years after the county’s 28th Liam MacCarthy Cup triumph, it painted a bleak picture for the state of Tipp hurling. Nevertheless, Maher viewed the situation from a different perspective.
He explained: “Coming to the end of 2024, I know the campaign didn’t go well but I could see the green shoots that were in there around the group and I knew Tipperary would do well moving forward.
“Another thing I kind of said to myself was maybe the time for me to step away is now and give some younger player, one of the Under-20s, an opportunity to come into the panel and to take a place and get an opportunity to drive it on from there.”
COMING GOOD
Having come under intense scrutiny following the failure of last season, Cahill has overseen an impressive response in 2025.
A victory over Galway in tomorrow’s All-Ireland quarter-final would be Tipp’s fourth on the bounce.
Maher continued: “It’s just one of those things when you train so hard to peak at a certain time and it just doesn’t happen for whatever reason.
“But the group got back together. They went hard at it early this year and the fruits of that are showing now.
“An awful lot of these younger players, the likes of Jake Morris and these boys, are stepping up, which is huge and it’s needed.
“Ronan Maher is always a leader, Mikey Breen, there’s an awful lot of these boys putting their hands up to show that they have the leadership quality there that they always potentially had.
“But they’re really shoving it on this year, which is great to see.”
MAGICIAN MCGRATH
While the injection of youth is serving Tipperary well, Maher also hailed stalwart Noel McGrath, 34, who is still central to the cause in his 17th season.
The two-time All-Star said: “Noel is a generational player. He’s always had it since we were playing together at minor and I suppose Under-16 level.
“He’s always had something special about him. Fair play to him, he’s some operator.
“It was a joy to play beside him for so long. You probably don’t see half the work that he does away from the field to get himself into the condition.
“He looks after himself fierce well to still be able to operate at the level he is. It’s great to see that he’s still doing the job and it looks like there’s plenty left in the tank with him too.”
PATRICK ‘BONNER’ MAHER is an ambassador for the Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Championship.
