Tipperary Under-20 rising star Senan Butler has said that the pathway to senior county hurling has been bulldozed clear by Liam Cahill.
The mood is good in the Premier County right now. Next month the seniors will have the chance of annexing the Division 1 title for the first time since 2008 while Butler and co. set out tonight on their journey to become the first Tipp side to retain the Munster U20 crown since the class of 2003/04.
And, who knows, maybe they can also make up for last year's All-Ireland final loss to Offaly at a bouncing Nowlan Park.
Darragh McCarthy, Sam O’Farrell, Conor Martin, Aaron O’Halloran and Oisín O’Donoghue have all graduated from that U20 side to the senior ranks and Butler, who scored five goals in last year’s campaign, feels the door is wide open.
"Definitely," was his reply when asked was it encouraging to see so many of last year’s players involved.
"You just have to build your way up, it's a big difference from under U20 to seniors. You have to build up physically, speed is a big factor, but obviously you have to work hard to get up to that senior grade, so we'll see in the next coming years how it goes."
"So after the U20 championship you go back to your club, no matter how good you go in the U20 championship, you’ve to build on it with your club at senior level.
"There is a big difference from U20 to senior, you’ve to build on your performances there."
Tipperary start their group stage with the visit of Limerick to Semple Stadium this evening and having been somewhat of a surprise provincial winner last year, nobody will be underestimating them this time around.
"We were expected not to do well because that year [in] minor we were kind of poor enough, we got knocked out against Waterford. But yeah, against all the odds we did well, got out of Munster.
"We got to the All-Ireland, the All-Ireland didn't go as planned, we’ll see if we can top it this year."
Butler also confirmed that despite some hamstring issues in recent weeks, he expects to be available for selection for manager Brendan Cummins.
