The stakes aren’t terribly high in Dungarvan tonight, and maybe it’s just as well given the potential for confusion on the sideline.
Liam Cahill takes charge of Tipperary for the first time in the Co-Op Superstores Munster Hurling League against a Waterford side that he managed for the past three seasons.
His long-time right-hand man Mikey Bevans has moved with him, as has Waterford legend Tony Browne, who was a selector for Cahill last season when together they delivered an Allianz League title.
Down the sideline will be Davy Fitzgerald, returning to management with Waterford, where he took his first inter-county job back in 2008. A key member of his coaching team is Eoin Kelly, Tipperary’s all-time leading scorer and part of his native county’s management when they last won the All-Ireland in 2019.
“Sure look I suppose it's probably the relationship I had with Davy going back to the college days and that,” reflected Kelly on their time in Limerick IT, as it was then.
“Then when he rang me, I wouldn't be a hundred miles away from Waterford, it'd be about maybe 40 minutes down the road so geographically it's not a bad location.
“I was involved with Liam (Sheedy) with Tipp for three years and then last year I took the year out, I was playing myself and do you know when you get the call you're thinking, 'If you want to be involved you kind of have to stay involved in the modern game now' so I said, 'Right' and I chatted it out with him.
“Waterford were and are a team that excited me, I enjoyed them the last couple of years watching them so I said 'They're a good bunch of players', you do your research and they're a sound bunch of players.”
Kelly is hardly the first man to get involved with a county that is a close rival of his native one and, indeed, it’s become increasingly fashionable in recent years.
“I suppose when you look at it in the GAA world now, Henry Shefflin making the move to Galway probably really opened everyone else's minds.
“It's not an abnormal thing in the GAA that guys from different counties get involved elsewhere.
“The thing with (Tony Browne) it is that he obviously went in when Liam was manager in Waterford, probably built up a good relationship, a good rapport and when lads build that relationship and rapport up with someone and they feel they can work with them, that's what you do with a management team.
“Look, I know Tony as a player, a fierce likeable fella. Any reports you'd hear of him, even with Waterford, were all very good.”
The county-hopping among the cohort on the sideline this evening will likely continue into the future, with Kelly not shying away from the possibility of managing Tipp one day himself.
“I’m still playing away with the club and that. When you’re playing you’re saying, ‘Jeez, I won’t take on any management role because I’m playing’.
“It’s coming to a close soon enough on the playing side, do you know what I mean, but yeah, it’s definitely something that would interest you down the road.”
And, with Brian Cody having finally retired, he’s continuing his managerial apprenticeship alongside the most experienced operator in the game with Fitzgerald entering his 15th season at the coalface.
“He was over our Fitzgibbon team in college back in 2005. He was manager, I was captain.
“We always had that respect for each other. It's funny, when you win something prestigious in the hurling world, club level, college level or inter-county level, you always have that connection, you always have that connection with your manager.
“You'll often hear people saying it, that they had good times together. Yeah, a good connection there and a good respect for each other.
“At the end of the day Davy is probably one of the longer serving managers that's still in the game.
“Since Brian Cody has stepped away he has the most amount of years punched in so the experience that he has coming to the table, you're only looking forward to learning off him and off that.
“When you look at Wexford, even Waterford the first time he was with them, winning the All-Ireland with Clare, you're going to be learning.
“No different from Liam Sheedy, another All-Ireland winning manager, just to see what he brings to the table. That's what's going to interest me.”
Waterford’s struggles with the Munster round robin is something that they’ll have to get to the bottom of together. In the three seasons that it’s been staged, their only victory came last year against Tipp before losing the next three.
They’ll close out that phase of this year’s Championship against Kelly’s native county on May 28, a game on which their respective seasons may hinge.
“Talking to one or two managers and they just say that it's so enjoyable once January comes, it's boom, boom, boom, boom, matches and matches and they said it's very enjoyable.
“You'd be wrecked after it, they said, because you're trying to get them up for one Sunday and get them up again then the following Sunday.
“It's a question that we'll have to try and answer to and the first game is crucial in that round robin, so you'll be focusing on that and trying to get points on the board and that.
“I'm looking forward to it now and I suppose Waterford had a brilliant League last year, they were awesome last year and it kind of set them up in everyone's minds that they were going to be contenders and they maybe dipped a bit then in performance.
“They did win their first match against Tipp but they didn't seem to be playing to the top of their game.
“They hurled well against Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds and then the form just dipped, I suppose it's timing and you just have to get it right, the S&C side of it and the training side of it to make sure that you're peaking at the right time so that's the interesting side of it from my learnings as well.
“It has moved on some amount and if you don't go with it, you're going to be left behind yourself.”
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