Tipperary’s Brendan Maher ‘took one for the team’
Brendan Maher admits he was previously a jack of all trades for Tipperary and was a player “who took one for the team”.
In a lengthy interview with Alan O’Mara, the 2016 All-Ireland winning captain concedes he can concentrate more on making the midfield berth his permanent place in the team now that Pádraic Maher has taken over from him as the official leader of the team.
“If I’m 100% honest about it, that was probably the one thing that went against me in my career to date — my versatility. And managers have, I’m going to say, abused that but it’s the wrong way of saying it. Yeah, taken one for the team.
“Getting selfish about it, I want to express myself as much as possible. Midfield is where I was all last year and really enjoyed my hurling. I had specific roles in specific games in terms of man-marking and things like that, which has to be done, and I had no problem doing that but at the moment I’m just really enjoying playing as a midfielder and expressing myself.”
Maher, currently recovering from a shoulder injury, says Tipperary want to leave a strong legacy behind them.
“Something that is important for us in continuity and developing.
“It’s not an excuse but we didn’t have that natural progression after 2010. We had a change of management and it just interrupted the continuity from 2010 to 2011 and what followed then was players not buying into it and not giving enough.
“What we want to do this time, obviously, is move forward and we realised we do have a talented group and there is talent there in Tipperary at the moment. For us, when we look back on our careers we want to say that we made the most of our time and that we don’t have any regrets.”
