A FEW weeks ago in Roscrea, John and Liam Sheedy were following the coffin of Liam's mother-inlaw when there was a sudden surge from the back. An old hurler from the town promptly took responsibility for crowd control.

"John, " he said, "you might move out to the wing there."

In hurling country such hurling parlance was natural, unobtrusive, even in as solemn a setting as this, but one other local wag couldn't resist lightning the mood further with another reference to the small ball.

"Well, whatever you do, " he quipped, "don't put him in f***kin' goals anyway!"

John Sheedy laughed as heartily as rest of the mourners, with the grace of a man at ease with himself and his past. He's long accepted that he'll be forever that moment: Thurles, 1984, and that ball he cleared off his crossbar only to bat down to Seanie O'Leary. But as much as that save has stayed with him, so has his love of the game.

Today he coaches Ballina, that little postcard village across the lake and bridge from Killaloe, in the North Tipp final, a title they've never won in their history.

Yesterday his son played for their local club, Portroe, in a senior relegation play-off. So did his brother. A month short of his 38th birthday and just days after becoming the Tipperary senior manager, Liam Sheedy still hurls on.

He's been hurling pretty much for all those 38 years.

He was one when his father passed away, and even as resilient a woman as his mother . . . still going strong these days at 83 . . . needed some help in raising four boys while holding down a job in the local post office; the field and the game did some of the rearing for her. The game has been their outlet, if not quite their sanctuary, and when he's had his brushes with the barbs, Sheedy has dealt with them as stoically as his brother.

He was part of Michael Doyle's management team that was dismissed after one season in 2003, something, Sheedy admits, that "hurt . . .I'm not going to tell you a lie".

But it didn't deter him from going forward as county minor manager a couple of years later.

That gig had dark days too.

In 2005 they were dumped out of the championship at the Munster semi-final stage.

Last year they were beaten in the Munster final. In the aftermath of that game Sheedy was criticised for making switches prompted by the same principles and methodology that governed his acclaimed "masterstrokes" that won the All Ireland later that same year. "In this game, " he says, playing on a famous phrase of his predecessor, "you get more kicks in the backside than you get pats on the back, but sure that's sport." Here's one man, you can be sure of, that won't be moaning on or ringing up Marian Finucane or Rachel English about the hardship of being an inter-county manager in the 21st century.

Truth is, he's longed for this job since he had to pack up his own inter-county career in 2000. Five years ago he was interviewed for the position. He had been manager of the county's intermediate team that had taken Galway to a replay in the All Ireland final but the board felt he was still probably too young for the gig and felt his apprenticeship and Tipp hurling itself would be best served with him acting as a selector to Doyle. After winning an All Ireland with the minors last year, he had the option in recent weeks of working with that group again in the under-21 grade but after sounding out a few household names, namely Nicky English, the board felt Sheedy was their most credible option for the senior post and in his own understated way, so did Sheedy himself.

After being a player, intermediate manager, senior selector, minor All Irelandwinning manager, his apprenticeship was complete.

Not that he's finished learning though. The key to coaching, he says, is the willingness and capacity to always learn and he'd like to think he's bright and humble enough to do so. In 2005 he wasn't appreciate enough of the demands on minors and duly overtrained them; that year, he estimates, those Tipp minors had more collective sessions before their Munster semi-final exit than the class of 2006 did before their All Ireland final win. In recent weeks he devoured Jack O'Connor's Keys To The Kingdom and found it reinforced his own belief in the value of giving players a voice.

After the 2006 Munster minor final defeat, Sheedy concluded that the players' heads had dropped after a Cork goal and that the forwards had failed to act as the first line of defence, their concession of only one free in the 60 minutes more a measure of their timidity than their discipline, but he needed to hear such points come from the players. It duly did and from that involvement came a greater commitment which would propel them to the All Ireland itself. Sheedy is known in Tipp for his straight manner, but even after 2003 where the general perception is Doyle was shafted by player power, Sheedy still believes in giving players a say.

"If there are hard calls to be made, myself and [his selectors] Eamonn O'Shea and Michael [Ryan] won't shirk away from them, " he says, "but these fellas are hurling a long time, they know the game and you'd be mad to close the door on any of their ideas."

He won't be dismissing anyone either. He's mad about the kids he coached last year but he won't be going with them just yet, certainly not en masse. They need time.

"I think the core of the Tipp senior team is already there.

A sprinkling of youth and freshness is no harm but there'll be no clearout. We'll always be on the lookout for players. A fella with promise might be carrying a stone-and-a-half extra because he's not featuring late on in championships and doesn't see himself as a county player and therefore doesn't behave like one either. Like, when I was called into the senior panel in '97, I was 27 years of age and weighed 14-and-a-half stone. Come championship I was 12-and-a-half stone. We'll be looking out for fellas like that, but again, the core of the team is strong."

He knows the lay of the land, and as a sales manager with Bank of Ireland, he knows the figures: Tipp have won just one Munster title in 14 years. They haven't contested a league final or All Ireland semi-final since 2003, landmarks that weren't enough to save Doyle his job.

But another fact: Tipp rattled Cork in last year's Munster final and beat them this year. They're the last side to beat Waterford in Munster.

For all their trials and tribulations under Babs, Tipp never lost a championship game this past two years by more than three points. This past year was not a wasted year. In all those games, a lot of players were blooded, something he feels the Tipp public and those who sought yesterday to eliminate the round-robin qualifiers, unfortunately tend to forget. It's Tipp that need some tweaking, not the system.

"Look, every team needs a slice of luck. In '99 I was sure we were going to win the All Ireland. We destroyed Cork in a challenge game a few weeks before the championship and Joe Deane said to me coming off the field, 'God, ye're going to take some stopping; we're in crisis here.' But then in the last minute Davy [Fitzgerald] bangs in that penalty, Clare draw, blow us out of it in the replay and Cork go on to win the All Ireland. In 2001 we maybe got some luck due to us from '99. This year the lads got none against Limerick. But with a little bit of luck and a lot of hard work we'll be back challenging for all the main honours.

"The two areas we need to look at is our overall work rate and our ball-winning capability. You take Kilkenny and Waterford; that's why they won everything between them this year and that's where we're falling behind, all over the field. We seem to struggle to win the 50-50 battles. On the ground and in the air. If you start winning those battles, you start winning over the crowd and everything takes off."

He's also detected that in recent years Tipp have got into the comfort zone of winning two out of every four league games, a record and attitude which has manifested itself in championship.

They need to go back to the mentality Nicky brought with him in '99. Look to get back winning four out of five league games and you'll be back winning Munster finals and All Ireland semi-finals.

As a player, Sheedy's success was based on patience and graft. So it has been as a coach. Now Tipp's time to rise again has come too.

Along the climb, there might be the odd stumble and fall.