In a quiet moment in the Tipperary dressingroom after the 2016 All-Ireland final, Michael Ryan reset the clock at zero. The Tipp manager pointed at the Liam MacCarthy Cup and said if anyone in the room was content with winning it once, they should leave now. Ryan knew the lie of the land. From the top of the mountain Tipp had a history of hazardous descents.Over the following months Ryan tried to micromanage Tipp’s response to being champions. They declined an invitation to appear on the Late Late Show and all public appearances by players with the cup were ruled out after December. One-on-one interviews with players were not permitted either, apart from occasional sponsors’ events.“The Tipp players are living like hermits,” said one former Tipp player that winter. “It’s like they never won it. It’s unbelievable. There’s not a word about anything. No rumours. No nothing. Only that Mick Ryan has frightened the life out of the whole place.”Tipp stormed to the 2017 league final and, out of nowhere, lost to Galway by 16 points. All of a sudden, the reins had slipped. A couple of weeks later two players were carpeted for their behaviour on the May Bank Holiday weekend and forced to apologise to the group.Three weeks after that, Cork beat them in the first round of the Munster championship in Thurles. By the end of the month Cathal Barrett had been cut from the panel “for disciplinary reasons.” Tipp’s title defence was under siege from inside and out.They made a restorative run through the qualifiers and, ultimately, lost an earthquaking All-Ireland semi-final to Galway by a point. But it wasn’t their goal to lose honourably. Another title defence had come up short.For the last 60 years, Tipp have been in this tangle with history. Liam Cahill’s champions are the ninth to launch a title defence since the county last went back-to-back in 1964/65. The latter was the year My Fair Lady swept the Oscars, a Russian astronaut became the first man to walk in space, and the Latin Mass was dropped. Maybe it was before your time.Tipperary manager Declan Ryan and Galway manager Michael Donoghue after the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho